by Sarah Ockler
“Envisionation?” I ask.
“You know, where you think about the thing you want and just picture yourself getting it?”
“Visualization, Frankie, and it’s not gonna work.”
“Visualization. Yeah, that. Just try it, okay?” She closes her eyes and presses her fingers to her temples, switching into monotone. “Anna is arriving in California. She and Frankie are magical and beautiful, like mermaids in the water. They are walking on the beach and lots of boys are waving and drooling because they’re so irresistible.”
She opens her eyes. “Can you see it?”
“Not really,” I say. “But I am getting very sleepy.”
“Be serious, Anna. You aren’t trying hard enough. Close your eyes.”
I do as she asks and try to picture the scene she’s painted. She talks about lying in the sun, the smell of coconuts, writing postcards to my parents, and soon I’m thinking about the postcards Matt used to send me with pictures of sea lions wearing sunglasses or severely overweight women in neon thongs. I saved every one, tucked safely into a box under my bed.
If he’d kissed me a year earlier, would I have gotten love letters, instead?
“See?” Frankie taps my leg, pulling me back to the present.
“We will see.” I shake off a fading image of Matt’s scribbled blue XOs.
“Anna, this is going to be so great!” Frankie tacks our packing list to the bulletin board on the wall above her desk and procures a cigarette from the stash in her top drawer. She only smokes in her room, out the window. Never in public. Never at school. Never outside. She denies it whenever I bring it up, but sometimes I think she doesn’t even like it; she just wants her parents to catch her and do — I don’t know. Something.
Last month, when Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne first suggested the return trip to their favorite summer spot with me in tow, Frankie freaked out. She went completely silent for a long time, and none of us knew what would come next. It was like at school or family things right after the accident when people would mention Matt. Her mind would shut off and go away. Or she’d get so angry she’d shake. Other times, early on, she’d just run away and weep. Weeping is different from crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it’s over, you feel like you don’t have any bones left to hold you up.
She didn’t weep the night they talked about the trip, though. She just got mad and stormed off to her room, leaving Red and Jayne to fumble through their usual apologies to me. I could see it was hard for them, but I wasn’t sure what they expected. As the California announcement took an awkward dive out of Red’s mouth and flopped onto the table waiting for a response, all I could think was, A year later is still way too soon.
But the next morning, Frankie started to warm up to the idea, and by week’s end, it was as though she was in on the Zanzibar Bay plan all along, doodling pictures of palm trees and sunshiny good times in her head.
Frankie kneels in front of the window, pushing aside the wooden beads and leaning against the sill to light the cigarette. Matt’s red glass bracelet slides down her wrist, sparkling through the sunlit haze of smoke. The bottoms of her feet are gray with the barefoot dust of summer, and as she turns to blow each puff of smoke at the sky, I can’t shake the feeling that it really is too soon.
“Frankie, do you think California is happening too fast? I mean, too soon?” My voice is low. I’m not exactly sure it came out right.
“Not really,” she says, dropping the half-smoked butt into an old Diet Coke and rejoining me on the floor. “We still have one, two… four weeks before the A.B.S.E. officially begins. That means that our hair should grow about half an inch.” She holds her hand below her chin, indicating the anticipated length. “Also, we’re going on Ultra Quick-Skinny.”
“Those fake milk shakes?” I ask. Swallowing my own tongue sounds more appealing than a shake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “You’re kidding.”
“Anna, we have to. We can lose, like, ten pounds by then. Think beaches. Think bikinis.” She lifts her shirt and pinches the nonexistent fat on her stomach. “And,” she says, slapping her belly twice, “don’t forget about the A.A.”
A.A. — Anna’s Albatross. From the Latin Anna, meaning me, and Albatross, meaning “something that hinders or handicaps; e.g., ‘it was an albatross around her neck.’ ” It’s the code name we gave my virginity when Frankie lost hers to the German exchange student after the Spring Send-off dance two months ago and became the expert on such things.
“But Francesca,” I say in my breathy romance novel voice, “I want it to be… special!” Which is at least fifty percent true. Well, maybe sixty. Okay, sixty-eight, but no more. The truth is, I always imagined it would be with Matt. I was in love with him before I even knew what to call it, and when we finally got together last summer, it was a done deal in my mind. I saw the whole of my future in that first kiss, all the way up to the part where I would help him pack on his last night before school, and one thing would lead to another, and he would passionately kiss me goodbye, falling onto his bed, and then we would finally…
But when he died, that dream died, too. Guys? Getting close? That close? It hurts too much to think about. If I kiss someone else, the spell will be broken, and my memories of Matt and everything I wrapped up in them will be erased. No, thank you.
“Special? Yeah, right!” Frankie throws a pillow embroidered with gold elephants at me. “I told you, it’s really not that good the first time. It’s more like a rehearsal for the real thing — an undress rehearsal. I picked Johan because he was leaving a week later and I knew I’d never have to see him again.”
Picked Johan. If I look up picked in the dictionary, I won’t see any reference to Frankie and Johan. I’ll have to flip ahead to S for stalked. All year, Frankie intimidated Johan’s girlfriend, Maria, with dirty looks in gym class, left daily notes in his locker, and made out with his friends in the parking lot so that it would get back to him. Johan was the only guy unwilling to end his current relationship for a shot at Frankie, and that perplexed and frustrated her. So when Maria dumped him a week before the Spring Send-off, Frankie pretended she didn’t know about it until the night of the dance, when she approached him with her I’m Totally Here for You face. Half an hour later, they were out on the dark soccer field doing their own little dance, leaving me to fend for myself in a gym full of gyrating, happy teenagers.
It’s been two months. Johan is back in Germany and hasn’t returned any of Frankie’s e-mails.
That doesn’t stop her from plotting the downfall of my innocence on our upcoming trip. In her mind, we’ll be ignoring a direct missive from the God of Summer Vacations if I don’t ditch the big V once and for all somewhere along the Pacific coast.
“How could I forget the Albatross?” I ask. “You bring it up every five minutes.”
“Just trying to keep it fresh.” She rises from the floor and holds out her hand. “Anyway, your virginity is the least of our pretrip problems. Come on — your house.”
four
Upstairs in my room, Frankie pans my closet with her video camera, doing her best movie-announcer-guy voice:
“In a world where summer dreams really do come true, Anna and Frankie plan the vacation of their lives. There will be beaches. There will be bathing suits. And there will be boys. But something lurks just below the surface, threatening to ruin the A.B.S.E. if these clever, beautiful gal-pals don’t turn their attention to its immediate resolution: Anna’s wardrobe is a total nightmare!”
Owing to Frankie’s tireless quest for the smallest ratio of fabric to flesh legally allowed, her summer attire — and even most of her winter set — is always beach ready, featuring cute halters, short skirts, and strappy black sandals.
Owing to my mother’s tireless quest for the ultimate deal, combined with her standard-issue fashion immunity, my wardrobe — taken as a collection — should be tried, convicted, and hung. Devoid of anything cute, short, or strappy, my closet houses an anthology o
f half-price, off-season sale items typically excavated from the basements of overcrowded department stores where I elbowed my way past mobs of middle-aged women bargain-hunting in the loose underwear bins.
“What do you suggest?” I ask, fingering the shirts that hang in front of us.
“I don’t even know where to start.” She turns the camera on herself and makes an exaggerated shrug in front of the lens. “Just take it all out and throw it on the bed.”
I’m not in the mood to dismantle my entire closet, but I do as she asks. It makes her smile, just a little bit, so I don’t fight her. Sometimes when she looks happy like this, I watch her from the corner of my eye and wonder if my best friend is still in there somewhere, the one who used to stage elaborate weddings for our dolls and deal me an extra thousand dollars in Monopoly so we could conspire against Matt. In the postdeath murk of our relationship, I don’t know if I’ll ever see that Frankie again. We’re such different people now; if I met her on the street today, just like this, we would never be friends. But once in a while, her smile comes back — however fleeting — and I see her, really see her, and know I’ll do anything to keep her here a little longer, to keep her from slipping back into the coma of silence that nearly overtook her last year.
Even if it means talking about clothes and boys and milk-shake diets instead of things that matter.
“Anna Reiley’s wardrobe malfunction, take one.” Frankie films while I toss heaps of unwearable clothing on the bed by the armful. I have a few passable favorites, supplemented by frequent raids on Frankie’s closet, but I force most of the embarrassing ensembles into hiding, where they wait in vain for the day when they, like their more stylish brethren, might be called into fashion service.
“God, Anna. What are these?” Frankie sets down the camera to grab a pair of old jeans with her finger and her thumb as though pants can transfer a contagious virus.
“They’re my old favorite jeans from middle school. They have good memories.”
“Anna, ankle zippers are never good memories. And what the hell is this thing? It’s completely ruined.”
My mouth goes dry as Frankie pulls a white tank top from the plastic bag I’ve kept it in for the past year, stuffed behind all the shoes on the closet floor. It has splotches of purple, crusty and fading from its original birthday blue. At first I didn’t want to wash it because it reminded me of that night and everything it was supposed to turn into. After he died, I didn’t want to wash it, get rid of it, or do anything to it.
Ever.
“Garbage pile,” Frankie says, ready to cast it aside.
“Don’t!” I dive toward her and snatch the shirt out of her hands with more force than I intend. It’s the only surviving witness to the night Matt and I changed over from friends to whatever it was we became, and it’s nearly impossible for me not to cry.
“What’s with you, Anna? It’s just a white tank. You can get a new one for like five bucks.”
Don’t worry. It’s our secret.
“Sorry.” I’m surprised and glad she doesn’t recognize it. I run my thumb back and forth over a crusty bit on the shoulder strap as a five-second version of the cake fight flashes behind my eyes like a movie stuck on quick search. Don’t cry over spilt frosting, Anna. “I just — I like this one.”
“What for?” she asks.
Just tell her.
“It’s from the — it’s just the —” I bite my lower lip.
Tell her.
“Anna? What’s wrong?”
Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just that it’s from the first time your brother kissed me and made me promise not to tell you. And I was in love with him forever, and he was supposed to tell you about it in California, and we were all going to live happily ever after. I still write him letters in the journal he gave me, which he doesn’t answer, since he’s dead and all. But other than that? Honestly, it’s nothing.
“Anna?” She watches me with her sideways face again. “Huh? Oh, sorry. Nothing. I’m fine. I — I’ll get rid of it later. Anyway, look at these.” I swallow the lump in my throat, shove the tank behind some shoe boxes in the closet, and pull out a pair of tiny Snoopy flip-flops. “Remember when we had matching flip-flops in third grade?”
“Anna, we had matching everything back then. This,” she sweeps her hand over the clothes, “is a fashion — a fashion Heidelberg, as you would say. I don’t know when we got so far off track.”
I know. I remember the exact moment Red started dropping us off at the mall with his credit card, telling Frankie to get whatever she needed and that he’d be back for us in a few hours. “Nothing like a little family trauma to kick-start a decent wardrobe,” she’d say, pretending not to cry while trying on piles of expensive clothes from all of our favorite stores.
“It’s Hindenburg, Frank. And if you’re feeling nostalgic for matching outfits, you’re welcome to join me and Mom on our next trip to Shay’s House of Bargains.”
“There must be something savageable in here.”
“Salvageable. And there isn’t.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Salvageable. As in, able to be salvaged. Besides, all we really need are bikinis, jean shorts, and sandals. And maybe a dress or two for going out at night. Come to think of it, maybe we should get a —”
“Bikinis? In public?!”
My world is crashing down around me! Frankie — long and lean, olive skin, fat in just the right places and nowhere else — will be stunning on the beach. But me? I picture my blue-white skin and untoned, freckled arms hanging unattractively out of a two-piece. No one wants to see that unprepared. I look Frankie up and down and chew on my thumbnail. Perhaps a beach vacation with my stunning best friend isn’t such a great idea. “I don’t think so, Frank.”
“Anna, no one will notice us if we’re wandering around in old-lady clothes. They’ll think we’re pregnant or something.”
“Rather than wanting to get us pregnant?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know, Frankie. I don’t think —”
“Anna, you’re gorgeous, and you know it. You just have to stop being so shy about it and start working it. Dab on a little lipstick, walk straight, throw your shoulders back, suck your stomach in, stick your boobs out — and work it!”
In my mental movie of “working it,” I do okay with the lipstick but concentrate so hard on straightening, throwing, sucking, and stick-outing that I don’t notice a surfboard or driftwood or a small child underfoot and I trip, sailing over said unseen obstacle and face-planting in the hot sand.
“Not gonna work,” I say.
Frankie climbs onto the bed and grabs my shoulders. “It is gonna work. Believe me. You’re perfect!”
“You really think so?”
KABOOM!
Frankie and I both let out a squeal at the unexpected thunder. To me, the sudden change in weather is a clear sign that the universe does not want me to wear a bikini. As the sky darkens and the downpour starts, I catch Frankie gazing out the big bay window behind us, watching needles of rain come straight at the glass. She stares at it for a long time, tracing a streak of water down the window, distant. She does that sometimes — like her mind splits and one side stays here with me while the other is off living an entirely different life in the distance with people I can’t see or hear.
“He loved the storms at night, remember?” she whispers, more to her reflection in the window than to me. I nod and rest my head on her shoulder. It’s the most she’s said about him in a long time.
five
The next morning, entirely against my will, Frankie asks Aunt Jayne to drop us off at the mall and leads the charge to her favorite store — Bling. Everything inside — including the staff — is either see-through, rubber, glittered, or some combination thereof.
Leaning against the floor-to-ceiling speaker system behind the counter, a blonde only a few years older than us flips through the pages of this month’s Celeb Style and bobs her head, dangling silver hearts
dancing above her shoulders to the techno bass behind her.
Never deterred by a woman in a black rubber halter-top, Frankie taps on the counter. “Hi,” she shouts over the music. “Did you get the new swimsuits in yet?”
Rubbergirl, whose ripped denim shorts look like underwear with pockets, raises an eyebrow at Frankie and jerks her head toward the far corner of the store.
“Thanks,” Frankie says.
“Whatever.” Rubbergirl turns the page and releases a long, my-life-is-so-hard sigh.
Thankfully Mom isn’t here to witness the exchange, or we’d be waiting around for Bling management so Mom could share a long and painful commentary on how Rubbergirl’s lack of customer focus reflects poorly on the entire clothing industry.
“She’s new,” Frankie assures me, dragging me to the corner where the girl had so obligingly directed us.
After handing me her camera with explicit instructions to keep filming, Frankie takes a deep breath and gets to work. She weaves her way through racks of swimsuits, foraging like a mother antelope for her starving babies, passing over colors or styles that are “soooo last year” or “too blah blah blah for the beach.” When she finds something with potential, she tugs on the fabric to simulate a hard day in the surf and holds it to the light to ensure it has the right amount of see-throughability.
After fifteen minutes of hunting and gathering, Frankie emerges from the racks with two armloads of try-ons. A broken fingernail and a slight breathlessness are her only battle scars.
“You take this half, and then we’ll switch.” She passes me a pile of shiny, sparkling spandex as we move into the fitting room and hole up in adjoining stalls.
“I think we should stick with black,” I say to Frankie as I crack open the dressing room door to show her a particularly hideous orange thing stretched across my backside — the third atrocious suit I’ve tried on. “It’s supposed to be slimming.”