by Cheryl Klam
Simon and I are on our third dance when I see Drew. He’s not with my sister and is instead standing alone on the edge of the dance floor, watching me. The minute I lay eyes on him I feel the same magnetic pull, as if he could yank me toward him with a simple nod of his head. He looks totally drop-dead gorgeous, too. His longish hair curls up on the collar of his starched white shirt and his dark blue-green eyes stand out against the black material of his tux. Just the sight of him is enough to take my breath away.
“Maybe we should go get some punch or something,” I say to Simon.
“Actually, I’m having a problem with my contacts,” Simon says, cupping his left eye and blinking. “I’ll be right back.”
This is not a good time for Simon to be fiddling with his contacts. But I don’t say that. Instead, unable to look away from Drew and rendered helpless by his power over me, I nod and say, “I’ll wait here.”
As Simon walks away, Drew heads straight toward me. I know I should get off the dance floor and run as far and fast as I can in the opposite direction, but I still can’t move.
“Megan,” he says quietly, stopping in front of me.
We stand still, just looking at each other, while couples continue to dance around us. My heart is clanging against my chest and my breathing is ragged and irregular. “You look beautiful,” he says finally.
“Hah!” I say sarcastically.
He takes a step back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well…” I need to say something that will really put him in his place. “Well…you should!” Not exactly what I was hoping for.
“I should what?”
I shake my head in disgust and raise my hands, as if surrendering. “Why are you talking to me, anyway? Go be with your date.” I spin on my heel, walking away from him.
“What date?” he calls out. “I don’t have a date.”
Everything stops. “Isn’t Lucy here with you?”
“With me? She was supposed to come with Marybeth. There’s a whole bunch of us meeting here as a group.”
I feel a rush of relief, but after that passes, I close my eyes and for a moment I think I’m going to bawl like a baby.
“You thought I brought Lucy to the festival?” he asks, like this is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard.
I really think I’m going to die right here and now, just fall flat on my face in the middle of the fall festival and croak.
“We need to talk.” Drew gently takes my arm and steers me off the dance floor. He lets go of my arm and I keep my eyes firmly on him as I follow him through the crowd and out of the gym. We walk down the hall, toward the auditorium. We walk past the front door and all the excited, dressed-up couples who are still arriving and head directly down toward the opposite end of the hall, where the auditorium and production studio are located. I keep my eyes on the floor, not making eye contact with anyone. I can’t talk. Nor can I think or even feel. I’m totally, absolutely numb.
Drew reaches the end of the hall and turns into the dark, unlit window-lined hall that leads to the auditorium. He stops outside the auditorium door and turns to face me. “Is that why you’re here with Simon? Because you thought I liked Lucy?”
“No. Yes. It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
Even though it’s dark and the only light is coming from the main hall, his eyes still sparkle. I glance away and take a step backward, so that I’m standing up against the wall. “Lucy likes you.”
Drew breathes in deep. He takes a minute to collect his thoughts. “I…I have never been interested in Lucy. And I never will be.”
“She told me you asked her to the fall festival.”
“What?” Drew’s eyes open wide. He shakes his head in disbelief. “If I said or did anything to give her that impression, well, then I’m very, very sorry.”
I think about my sister and how she misled me on purpose. It hurts so bad, but at the same time, I’m so relieved that Drew isn’t interested in her, I feel so light, like I’m floating.
He steps toward me and touches my chin with his index finger, lifting it up toward him. “I like you, Megan. In fact, all I can think about is you.”
I touch my hand to his cheek. He likes me. Me.
Drew takes my hand and kisses it. And then he leans toward me, lightly pressing his lips against mine. We kiss long and slow, as if there is no one else in the world but us.
And then I hear it. A little gasp from whoever is now at the end of the hall, spying on us. I jump away from Drew and turn toward the main hall, half expecting to see my sister. But it’s not Lucy. It’s Annie Carmichael, the biggest mouth in the school. Before I can say anything (not that I would have anyway) she turns and hurries away.
“Oh, great,” I say under my breath. “The whole school’s going to know in the next fifteen minutes.” By the time it finished making the rounds, I have no doubt Annie will have (supposedly) discovered us completely naked and doing the mambo jambo.
This was not good. Not good at all. True, my sister had lied to me; true, she deserved to be tossed into a dungeon and hung by her fingernails, but I still couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit protective of her. She needed to be told the truth, but by me.
I hurry toward the main hallway and arrive just in time to see Annie push past Simon.
“Megan?” Simon calls out to me. He’s standing at the other end of the hall, two glasses of punch in his hands. I feel as though someone has kicked me in the stomach the minute I see him.
Simon looks from me to Drew.
“Do you want me to stay?” Drew asks, half under his breath.
“No,” I say, still looking at Simon. He’s walking toward me now, trying not to spill the punch.
“I’m sorry,” Drew whispers, as if he was to blame for my present situation. Even though Drew nods in Simon’s direction as they pass each other, Simon doesn’t acknowledge him.
“What’s the deal with Annie?” Simon asks, handing me a glass of punch as he watches Drew go back into the auditorium.
“She went tearing into the gym like she was being chased by Bigfoot.”
“We need to talk,” I say quietly to Simon.
Simon’s breathing a little harder than normal and there is nervousness in his eyes, the same look he had the first day of freshman year when I met him in the office during lunch. We walk back in the direction I had just come. Only this time, when I get to the end of the hall I turn toward the production studio.
“So what do you want to talk about?” Simon asks as he follows me inside the studio.
I turn on the lights and pause, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. I look at the table saw and the circular saw and the cupboards lined with turpentine and neatly stacked cans of paint. I have spent so many hours in this room, all of them happy and almost all of them working alongside Simon.
“Oh, Simon,” I say, sinking back against the wall as my nose starts to run. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “The past few weeks have been so awful. I wanted to talk to you about everything but I…I didn’t know how.”
Simon’s frozen still, staring into his glass of punch.
“I really do love you, I do, just not in the way…”
“Don’t!” he says, holding up his hands as if to ward me off. “What were you and Drew doing back there in the dark anyway? Did Annie catch you making out or something?”
“This isn’t all my fault,” I plead.
“I don’t believe this!” Simon yells.
“You were the one who threatened to walk away from our friendship,” I say. “You were the one who…who gave me an ultimatum.”
“Ultimatum? I told you how I felt. I was honest.”
“Honest? Then answer me this. Why were you content to be just friends when I was ugly?”
Simon’s mouth drops open, as if he’s flabbergasted by my accusation.
“I would never have done th
is to you,” I say. “I would never have given you an ultimatum. I would’ve been there for you. I would’ve wanted you to be happy.”
“You think I want to feel this way?”
I don’t respond.
“You think I chose this?” He drops his head. A tear falls, splattering against the blue concrete floor. “Every time I see you talking to Drew, or to any other guy for that matter, I feel like my heart is being ripped to shreds. Every time I’m with you I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. I want to show you how much I care about you.” He shakes his head as he gives me a sad smile.
“Don’t you get it, you idiot? I’m in love with you.”
He puts his hand on the door and stops. He swipes away a tear with the back of his hand, still holding on to the punch. “Let me ask you something, Megan. What about Drew? I mean, at least I was your friend before the accident.”
I want to tell him how wrong he is, how wrong I was, too. And I want to give him a tip for future reference: When you tell a girl you love her don’t call her an idiot. But instead I stand there silent, my nose running like crazy, unable to speak. But it doesn’t matter. The door is shut and Simon is already gone.
twenty-eight
break a leg (interjection): a traditional good-luck greeting between cast and crew before a performance.
The minute I step into the house I’m confronted with silence. Absolute, total silence.
“Lucy?” I call out. No answer. “Mom?” Still no answer.
I’m really hoping Lucy is here. By the time I got to the gym, big-mouthed Annie had already spilled the beans and word on the street was that my sister had left in a huff.
“Lucy?” My parents’ door is shut. I turn the knob but the door is locked.
“Lucy,” I say loudly and firmly. “We need to talk.”
Silence.
“This isn’t fair, Lucy. You didn’t even like Drew before this year. You couldn’t have cared less about him until you found out he was directing the spring musical.”
Silence.
“I’ve liked him for a long, long time. Since the first time I ever saw him.”
The door flies open. My sister is standing in front of me. I’ve never seen her like this. Her carefully coiffed updo is half down. Her eyes are red and puffy and her mascara is smeared. “You are such a liar,” she spits.
Her uncontrolled venom takes my breath away. I have never seen her so angry. “It’s true,” I say calmly. “I liked him from the first time I saw him…”
“You never ever mentioned a word about liking Drew…”
“What difference does it make? You knew how I felt about him. You had to know.”
She pauses just long enough for me to know I’m right.
“So what is this all about?” I ask. “You think you deserve him because you were the first to call dibs?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m trying to understand you,” I say. Due to Lucy’s obvious state of hysteria, it’s more important than ever that I stay calm, cool, and collected. “You outright lied to me. First you tell me that he asked you to Marybeth’s party, which was a lie, then you tell me he asked you to the fall festival, which was a lie…what the hell is your problem?” A reasonable question, worthy of a reasonable answer.
“I didn’t lie! Everyone kept telling me how much he liked me and he is the one who asked me if I had a date…and even though I suggested that we all go together he seemed really happy and excited and I assumed he wanted to be with me and was just too shy…”
“Assumed?” I cross my arms, just to hammer the point home. “Assumed?”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Lucy screams, holding her hands to her ears. “Stop being so terrible to me. It’s like you’re out to get me! It’s like you’re obsessed with me. You want to be an actress, wear my clothes, eat what I eat, date the guy I like, take over my friends…you’re trying to steal my life.”
Steal her life? Just because I eat whatever she does, just because I sit with her friends at lunch, just because I sometimes wear her clothes, just because I tried out for the part she wanted…
“I don’t want your life. I just want Drew.” I take a step back and take a deep breath. “And the truth of the matter is, he wants me, too. He asked me to the fall festival, Lucy. Me. Not you.”
“So why didn’t you accept? Why did you go with Simon instead?”
“Because…because you liked him and also…I thought Drew only liked me because I was pretty.”
“You’re pathetic!” Lucy yells. “You’ve become such a…such a conceited, selfish bitch.”
Lucy never swears. The sheer force of her words sends me reeling backward, clutching my chest. She bursts into tears, hysterically sobbing, and sits back down on the edge of our parents’ bed. “I just want things to be the way they were.”
“The way they were?” Suddenly I’m strong again. “You mean with you always being the one in the spotlight and me always stuck in the shadows, cheering you on? With you always being the strong one, the confident one, the one who always has to take care of her poor, lonely, ugly little sister? Is that what you want? Is that what you miss?”
Lucy doesn’t answer.
“You know why you’re so mad at me?” I’m yelling, but I don’t care. “Because I finally got something that you wanted. And you can’t stand it.” I’m breathing hard. “I thought I wanted things to be like they were between us before, too. But I’m realizing I don’t. I want to be able to win sometimes, too. I want to be able to get what I want, too.”
She clenches her fists, and for a moment I think she’s going to slug me. Instead she pushes past me and stomps down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I shout, as Lucy unlocks the front door.
“I’m going back to the dance and you can sit here by yourself. Eat a bag of Oreos while you’re at it.”
It is a low blow, made even worse by the fact that we don’t have any Oreos. I already ate them.
Fortunately, I have not eaten the Doritos. Still in my dress, I grab the Doritos and head back upstairs to the hall bathroom. I turn on the light and stop, staring at my reflection. As I look at the high cheekbones; the small, almost perfectly shaped nose; the straight white even teeth, there is no sense of recognition or familiarity. I’m looking at the face of a stranger.
I turn on the water and grab a bar of soap, scrubbing all the makeup off my face. I let down my hair and yank it back in a ponytail. I take off my dress and put on my pajamas. I leave my dress in a pile on my floor and head back downstairs. I sit on the couch facing the door, waiting for Mom to come home, my ire at her absence increasing by the minute. By the time she arrives (two hours later), I have not only finished off an entire one-pound bag of Doritos, I’m working my way through an old, stale bag of chocolate chips that I found in the freezer.
“Hello?” Mom calls out, opening the door.
“Hello,” I say calmly from the kitchen.
“Megan?” she says, walking into the kitchen and turning on the overhead light. She takes one look at me and stops still. “What’s wrong?”
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“I dropped your dad off at the airport and then I met Francis for dinner in Little Italy. What’s going on?” she asks, concerned.
“Why are you home so early?”
“You missed it,” I say quietly. “You missed it all per usual.”
“Missed what?”
“Lucy and me…it was terrible.”
“Did you guys have a fight?” Mom says gently, sitting next to me.
“Drew and I kind of got together at the dance and Lucy’s big-mouthed friend Annie saw us.” I say this like the whole thing is Annie’s fault.
“Oh,” Mom says. I half expect her to jump away from me in horror, but instead she puts an arm around me and hugs me.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I say, slobbering on her shoulder. “It’s just…after our talk, I started to think that you were right,
that Drew only liked me because of the way I look. And I thought, at least Simon loves me for who I am. And if I went to the dance with Simon, then he would be happy, Lucy would be happy…”
“But what about you?” Mom asks.
“Exactly! And you know what else? Drew didn’t even ask Lucy to the dance, Mom. She made it all up. She knew I liked him and still…”
“I don’t know if you can blame this on Lucy. You were already going with Simon, right?”
My mom has a point. Not that it makes me feel any better.
“Yes, but you know how I feel about Drew. And she knows, too. She knew all along. She was trying to hurt me.”
“I’m not saying what she did was right, but I’m not so sure she was just trying to hurt you. Lucy’s been struggling lately, too, just like you. Sometimes people find themselves in a situation that’s new and unfamiliar and they get swept up in the emotion of it all. As a result, they say and do surprising things.”
I hate it when Mom does her Dr. Phil imitation. I start crying again. I grab the last tissue and blow my nose. “I’ve made such a mess of everything. I kept trying to make everybody happy and it just made things a million times worse.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Mom says and sighs. “Anyone would be having a tough time right now. To have everything coming at you at once, all this attention and on this magnitude, well, it has to be overwhelming.”
I take another tissue and blow my nose.
“I want you to know that what happened to you—your new face—was never anything I would have chosen for you. I thought you were perfect before. But after the accident, well, we didn’t really have any choice. I told myself that maybe it would all work out for the best, that perhaps your new face would give you more choices. And it has. Unfortunately, you’ve also inherited all the complications of being beautiful without having the skills to deal with it all.”