Mirror in the Sky

by Aditi Khorana

  It was shocking how much we didn’t want their company. Something had changed between Halle, Veronica, Alexa, and me in just one day, some sort of tectonic shift, a delicate adjustment that if left untended could render an earthquake. The old mistrust was gone, but we needed more time to simply settle into ourselves and into each other, without the complications that these boys brought with them.

  “You guys are trailing mud into the house.” Alexa looked at the foyer.

  “That’s not a very nice welcome,” Nick said, sitting down next to her, that perpetual grin on his face. “We wanted to surprise you guys. Didn’t you miss us?”

  “Not really,” Halle said under her breath. She was standing next to the sofa where Nick was sitting now, looking peeved, but he ignored her, reaching for her, trying to pull her into his lap.

  “Quit it, Nick.”

  “Baby, I’m just trying to kiss you. You’re always mad at me.”

  “You guys knew it was a girls’ weekend. I planned this for weeks!”

  “Well, we’re here now. We drove all the way up here from Connecticut to be with you. Let’s get the party started.”

  It was unclear what exactly Nick was thinking, or why he had brought Hunter and Jimmy along as his lackeys. They were already beginning to goof off, punching each other and laughing, heading into the kitchen, opening the fridge to inspect and then consume the contents. There was something entitled about their behavior, the interloping masculine infringing on some sort of harmonious feminine that had been built in a mere day, still precarious, but extant. I started to feel it again, the need to escape. I didn’t want to be around these people, I wanted to be home. I wanted to be with my mother.

  Within a couple of hours, the boys had hijacked the place. A football game blared on the TV, and empty beer cans and bags of chips littered the living room floor. It was as though they had taken advantage of our shock to deploy an occupation.

  Alexa, Veronica, Halle, and I huddled together in the kitchen.

  “Halle, tell your boyfriend and his friends to get out,” Veronica exclaimed.

  “Why is this on me? You guys say something!” Halle said.

  “Why does someone else always have to do your dirty work for you, Halle? I’m sick of being the bad guy! You be the bad guy.”

  “Maybe you’re just better at being the bad guy than me!” Halle retorted.

  “This is disgusting, you guys. They haven’t been here two hours and they’ve turned the place into a frat house,” Alexa said.

  “Where is all this mud coming from?” Halle yelled at them.

  “Oh, sorry, Nick made us go through the backyard to make sure we had the right house,” Jimmy called back.

  “Why would you guys have to go to the backyard for that?”

  They all started laughing, slapping each others’ backs.

  “No, it’s like, it’s an inside joke. Nick just wanted to throw Hunter into the mud. By the way, you guys have a serious food situation going on out there,” Jimmy said.

  “What food situation?”

  “Go look,” Hunter said. I scanned the back deck through the window. The remnants of our lobster dinner and a destroyed cake were rotting in the sun, flies darting all over the mess.

  “You should probably clean that up,” Jimmy said. I looked at him. He was chugging a beer, a trail of potato chip crumbs all over his shirt. I watched his eyes as he turned from me to the TV.

  “Holy shit, you guys! Look!” he said, pointing. I understood right then what people mean when they speak about those moments when everything goes into slow motion.

  It was a news bulletin, interrupting the game. “Breaking news out of Santa Monica, California. The FBI has launched an assault on the Santa Monica compound of the Church of the New Earth. We’ve heard some explosions out of the compound, where cult leader Robert Bennington has been holding people hostage for the past fifty days. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms also became involved in the investigation of the cult once they learned that the Santa Monica branch was stockpiling firearms and explosives. It is unclear exactly how many people are still inside the compound. It’s too early to say if there have been any fatalities. We’ll continue to bring you more news throughout the day.”

  I ran from the room, making it to the bathroom just in time, throwing up into the toilet.

  “Aaaawww, that’s bad!” I heard a voice behind me after a moment. Jimmy. He tried to touch my back, but I elbowed him away. I didn’t want anyone touching me right then, especially him. I felt vulnerable on all fronts—it was physical, visceral, but there was also that overwhelming recognition that something terrible was about to happen. Something terrible was already happening.

  “Here, let me help you,” Jimmy said, pulling my hair away from my face, but I shook my head violently.

  “LEAVE!” I said before another wave hit me. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I felt as though I was trapped on a train about to derail.

  I took a deep breath. I cleaned myself up. “Mommy,” I said, clenching my fists, “please be all right. You’re going to come back home. You can’t not come back home.”

  Outside, I could hear Veronica and Halle bickering again. Be here, I told myself. However bad here was, it was better than thinking about my mother. All I wanted to do was glue myself to the TV. All I wanted to do was call my father. Why hadn’t he called me? But I couldn’t. She’s coming home, I told myself again. And I gathered up all my resolve until I believed it.

  My head was pounding as I returned to the living room, where an epic fight between Nick, Halle, Veronica, and Hunter was unfolding. I sank down into the couch, and Jimmy took a seat next to me, touching my hair. I pushed his hand away.

  “We drove all the way out here to see you!” Nick yelled.

  “And NO ONE invited you. NO ONE asked you to do that! This was supposed to be a girls’ weekend, Nick. And now you bring these two beer-swilling Neanderthals to the house . . .”

  “Hey, you guys left a huge mess on the back patio, okay? There’s, like . . . rotting cake out there!” Nick yelled.

  “And it’s OUR rotting cake! It’s not our job to clean up after you! Why are you such a little kid, following us around?”

  “Hey, we’re only here to support Nick, okay?” Hunter said.

  “Support Nick in what?” Veronica yelled back, and Hunter’s face went pale. He had said something he knew he shouldn’t have.

  “Support Nick in what?” Halle asked.

  They were all quiet for a moment before Nick responded. “I wanted to make sure you were actually out here with the girls, okay? And not with some guy.”

  We were all quiet. “Why would I be here with some guy?” Halle said, but I could see the corners of her mouth twitching nervously.

  Jimmy reached for my waist at that moment. “Feeling better, babe?”

  I pushed him away. His eyes were barely open, and I could see he was drunk. He pulled at me more aggressively this time.

  “Hey, Tara,” he said. I turned to face him, and just as I did, he tried to kiss me.

  “Stop it, Jimmy!”

  “What, I’m just trying to, like, make you feel better.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Why are you being such a tease?”

  “Stop it!”

  “You’re such a bitch!” he yelled. I gasped. Everyone turned to look at us.

  “Leave her alone, Jimmy,” Nick said.

  “He’s not the one you need to say that to,” Veronica said under her breath, and Nick shot her a look.

  Veronica glared at him. “Why don’t you just come out with everything, Nick? You and everyone else. Everyone come clean, because this is bullshit,” she said.

  My heart started to race.

  “Okay. Fine,” she continued. “You’re not going to be honest? Nick, Halle doesn’
t love you. She’s pretty sick of you, actually.”

  “Really? Maybe Halle should tell me that herself. And while we’re at it, why don’t you tell everyone the truth about yourself, Veronica? Especially since you have personal stakes in my relationship with Halle.”

  Veronica was quiet.

  “Really, you should do it, especially for Hunter’s sake. Tell him why you’d never be interested in him,” Nick pressed.

  Veronica shook her head at him. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice was faint.

  “Shut up, Nick. Everyone already knows, okay?” Halle said. “Everyone knows that Veronica’s in love with me.” We all turned to look at Veronica, and her face was flushed, her mouth agape.

  “What? Is that true, Veronica? You like girls?” Hunter looked at her, but Veronica merely crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, her eyes flashing rage. But when I saw how she looked away, how her cheeks flushed in embarrassment, I could tell that she hadn’t wanted any of us to know. I wondered just then why she had chosen never to tell me, despite all the time we had spent together—all those dinners and study sessions at her house. Then I remembered my own secrets.

  Halle turned to Nick. “Veronica’s right, Nick. There’s someone else.”

  “I knew it.” He shook his head. “Who is it?” he demanded, and everyone looked at Halle. She didn’t say anything, and I was surprised when I heard my own voice in response to his question.

  “She’s seeing Amit,” I finally said. It came out almost too easily. As though all this time, I had been struggling to keep a flotation device under water with my own body weight. They all turned to look at me.

  “Who the hell is Amit?” Nick asked.

  “The guy from the restaurant,” I said. I didn’t even care anymore.

  “You knew?” Halle looked at me. I nodded at her. “You saw us . . .”

  “Wait, you knew and you didn’t tell us?” Veronica turned to me.

  “Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Halle asked.

  “I knew it. I knew you were a cheating liar,” Nick said to Halle.

  “Oh, don’t even!” Alexa screamed at him. “We all know what you did, Nick!” She yelled. I looked down at my toes, realizing it was my turn.

  “Tell everyone!” Alexa yelled.

  “Fine. Tara and I . . . we . . . I . . . I slept with Tara.”

  “You did what?” Jimmy, Alexa, and Veronica cried out in unison.

  “Seriously, dude! You knew I liked her,” Jimmy said.

  “But I don’t like you, Jimmy,” I said to him, and I didn’t even feel a pang of regret as I said this.

  “But you’re interested in Nick?” Jimmy asked.

  Nick interrupted, turning to Halle. “It happened on Christmas. When we were broken up. Ask her,” he said to her.

  “Is it true?” Halle asked.

  I looked at Halle. But even before I could respond, Veronica stepped in.

  “It is,” Veronica said, turning to Halle. “Alexa and I . . . we knew . . . or part of it, at least.”

  “The two of you knew? And you guys kept it from me? So all of you—Nick, Tara, and the two of you—all kept this . . . secret . . . and you never said a word to me?” We were all quiet. “And you!” Halle pointed to Alexa. “Here I am protecting you! Signing up to be on committees so you don’t get caught!”

  “Wait . . . get caught for what?” Veronica asked.

  Alexa pulled her knees into her chest. She didn’t look at any of us. “I’m the one who pulled the alarm. Who kept pulling the alarm. I’m the one who graffitied the science wing. I’m the reason for that stupid Safety First committee,” she said.

  Halle sank into the armchair by the fireplace. She looked out the window at the ocean.

  “Well, I guess it’s all out now,” she said. And then she buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

  FORTY-ONE

  THERE are endless variations on that particular second-grade math puzzle. In one of them it’s a fox, a chicken, and a bag of corn that a man has to get across a river. In another version, it’s a wolf, a goat, and cabbage. There might even be a version with a lion. The point is, the man can only take himself and one other item with him. The problem is he can’t leave the fox and the chicken together, because the fox will eat the chicken. And he can’t leave the chicken and the corn together, because the chicken will eat the corn, so it’s a fairly lousy situation.

  I still remember working on that puzzle, wondering how resolving it might ever serve me in real life. Who would have thought that a decade later, I’d find myself in Cape Cod with two cars and seven people who all hated each other?

  Hunter was pissed off at Veronica for supposedly leading him on. Jimmy hated me for supposedly leading him on. Halle hated all of us for keeping secrets from her. She hated Alexa for keeping things from her while Halle was trying to protect her from getting caught. We were all perplexed that Alexa was some secret vandal, lurking around school pulling fire alarms. Veronica hated Halle for outing her. Veronica also hated Nick for putting her in the position of being outed in the first place. I think Veronica might have also hated me for not telling her what I knew about Halle and Amit and for not telling her I had slept with Nick. I was definitely pissed off at Alexa for telling Halle about what had happened between us. Maybe Nick was too. Nick was pissed off at Halle, obviously, for cheating on him. But the weird, or maybe not so weird, thing was—I don’t think Halle was mad at Nick for what happened between him and me. It was almost as though she knew. Or she didn’t care. The secret upset her more than the fact that I slept with her boyfriend. And I was in a state of delirium, as though I was walking around underwater. I didn’t care what they decided. I was frantically trying to call my father, who wouldn’t pick up his phone.

  Finally, I looked up from the end of the driveway, watching them standing on the gravel path by the door as they continued to bicker. Veronica was refusing to drive with Halle, and Halle was refusing to drive with Veronica. Nick and Veronica were at odds too, yelling at each other.

  At the last minute, Halle shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll stay here.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you,” Alexa told her.

  “I kind of want to be alone,” Halle said.

  “Well, we can’t fit all six of us in Nick’s Jeep.”

  “Yes you can. Throw Jimmy in the back. Or take Amtrak. I don’t care. I’m staying up here. By myself. You guys figure it out,” she said. She looked at me, and I could tell that she knew I was thinking about my mother. She gave me a sympathetic look for a moment before she turned and walked inside.

  In the end, Nick, Alexa, Veronica, Jimmy, Hunter, and I piled into Nick’s Jeep, on what was supposed to be the third day of our vacation.

  It hadn’t taken long for everything to get tangled. It was like that peasant blouse from the ’90s my mother had lent to me. It was white with a red ribbon stitched around the waist. It had been perfectly preserved in her closet for years until, one day after borrowing it, I accidentally threw it into the wash and it came out pink, strangled by the ribbon, which had disintegrated in some parts, wrenched itself into a ball in others.

  “Turn on the radio,” I said to Nick. And he did. I frantically scanned through stations. Every one was playing music. I checked my phone again, but there was nothing new about the raid. No clue as to whether or not my mother was okay.

  For a while, no one said anything. Finally, Nick broke the silence.

  “Why, Alexa?” Nick asked her.

  “You know why.” She shrugged. “I hate Brierly. I hate high school. I vomit every morning out of nervousness. I’m not a stellar student like all of you guys. People talk about me behind my back, say I have an eating disorder. I just want to be left alone.”

  I turned to her. “I . . . get it. Not the pulling the alarms part. But the rest of it . . . I get it.”
>
  She turned to Veronica then. “And you? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because it’s nobody’s business. Nick knew, obviously,” she said, nodding her head at him. “He’s always known. I . . .” She took a deep breath before she continued, “I tried to kiss Halle, last summer. We were at a club in New York. Sarah was with us. She saw it. And she kept on making these homophobic comments afterward. I think that’s why Halle wanted her out. Halle’s . . . you know, a major pain in the ass sometimes. But she is my best friend. Whatever. You can’t help who you love . . . and sometimes hate, in my case.” Veronica shrugged. She turned to Hunter then. “Sorry, Hunter.”

  “You can’t help who you love,” Hunter echoed, shrugging.

  “I’m pretty sure she gave Sarah the boot to protect you,” Nick said. “Sarah has a big mouth.”

  “Did you ever talk to Halle afterward? About the kiss?” Alexa asked.

  “No, of course not. I knew she didn’t reciprocate my feelings, so what’s the point? And . . . I don’t know, I guess I didn’t trust her enough to have a real conversation about it.”

  “Why didn’t you trust her?” Jimmy called out from the backseat. But I already knew why. Because Halle was secretive. She was mysterious. She was hiding something, and none of us knew exactly what it was. So we suspected things, we made up stories about her. We made her a villain, a manipulator, a bitch. And she was manipulative, she was strategic, she was hiding a secret, but it wasn’t that simple. She was hiding the fact that she felt unloved.

  I thought of something then. “That thing that you said to me about . . . you know, how she sees me as different . . . she never said that herself, did she?”

  “No,” Veronica admitted quietly. “I just felt that . . . she’s so heteronormative, and so . . . white, and so . . . ‘came on the Mayflower, I’m a Pilgrim’ . . . that she would, you know . . .”

  I felt sick to my stomach again. We were passing the industrial skyline of Providence. It looked ugly and gray this time.

  I turned to Nick. “Why did you get back together with her? Why didn’t you call me and tell me?”