Glimmer

by Phoebe Kitanidis

  I am, in fact, a shrimp. What a complete and total disappointment. Until I saw that, I had thought of myself as tall and cool and imposing. Who knows why I would assume that; I was aware that Dark-Eyed Boy was taller than me; I had to look up to glare at him for lying about his identity. I just hadn’t grasped how serious of a disparity there was between our heights. And now it’s too late. I can’t keep imagining I’m big and powerful when I know the truth.

  Well, crap. I slam the closet door and the full-length mirror on the outside catches me by surprise. I’m greeted by the same oval face I glimpsed in the shop window, framed by long wavy hair. Only now the image is crystal clear, and what I’m seeing makes my stomach sink with disappointment. My cute-as-a-button pointy chin makes me look like a toddler. My bouncy hair’s got a life of its own, front pieces constantly falling into my face with wild abandon. But the worst is that now I can see my own expression—the grouchy curve of my mouth, my huge, venomous green eyes. I can see how funny, how ridiculous, my honest indignation looks from the outside. I look like a pissed-off Disney Princess. Adorable . . . and harmless. I just want to chuck myself under the chin and say, Aw, don’t be such a lil’ grumpster! Put on a smile. And if I feel that way about my own reflection, it’s pretty much guaranteed that no guy who looks at me will ever take me seriously. No wonder Dark-Eyed Boy didn’t run when I told him to.

  I turn to the side to check myself out, trying to see what made him stare with that look of awe on his face. But all I feel is disappointment, mingled with disgust. Though I’m small, no inch of my body is flat. Everything tapers, or nips inward, or flares to the side, or pops out in front or back, seeking attention. Round breasts jut out in front of me, practically inviting touch. I put my hand over my sweater and squeeze—it’s squashy, yielding. Ugh. How weird . . . I didn’t see myself as the busty type. Too bad bodies are issued randomly, not selected to match your personality. Really, really too bad.

  Do I have to live in this body . . . forever?

  Maybe I could start working out, get ripped like Dark-Eyed Boy, so people would know they couldn’t mess with me. But my arms are already fairly toned, suggesting I do work out. It’s just that I’m a girl, so my muscles aren’t huge and bulky. They’re just kind of nicely shaped. Like that ever scared off an attacker.

  Maybe I should get a sex change.

  There’s a knock on the already open door. At the sight of Dark-Eyed Boy, I spin away from the mirror, embarrassed to be caught staring at myself.

  “How’s Room four, Jim?”

  “Nice lake view.” He walks straight over to me and lowers his voice. “I had to come up with a story. Didn’t you notice how people reacted when we told the truth?”

  “Of course I noticed this place is a little off, but—”

  “It’s more than a little off. What do you think happens here, to people with . . . our problem?”

  I think back to the nurse and Sheriff Hank’s hushed tones of shock. To the moss-covered asylum sign. A shiver runs from my scalp all the way to my tailbone. “I know we can’t tell them everything,” I say. “But pretending to be someone you’re not—that’s so devious.”

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “In other words, you lied to get what you wanted?”

  “If I hadn’t lied, I wouldn’t have gotten to stay with you.” His voice is pleading for understanding. “And I’m not leaving you alone, not till we know it’s safe here. I meant what I said—we’re in this together.”

  He reaches out his hand to me, and after a moment or two I take it. Part of me’s impressed that he was able to keep a cool enough head to strategize, back there with Liz and Sheriff Hank, when I was too busy being scared and angry and shell-shocked. That other part of me’s disturbed that he could spout lies and feel no remorse.

  “So what do we do when the real Jim shows up?” I ask.

  “Improvise.” His eyes go all intense for a moment, and I can see him struggling to stay positive. “This has to work till we figure out what to do next.” He brushes the hair out of my eyes. “Now put on your shoes; there’s something I need to show you. Downstairs.”

  For once I don’t even give him crap about telling me what to do. I’m just grateful he has a plan, because I’m feeling lost. And somehow I doubt Liz and her photo albums are going to save the day. “Let me find socks.” I lean across the bed and pull open the middle drawer of the bedside table with the hideously cute pink lamp on top. Presto, the drawer’s full of sock balls.

  “Whoa, hold on.” Dark-Eyed Boy looks excited. “There’s . . .” He counts quickly, pointing in the air at the chest of drawers, desk, and bedside table. “. . . sixteen drawers in this room, and you went right to that one. Maybe your subconscious is remembering something.”

  “Like where I keep my socks?” I frown and unroll a pair of black ankle socks to break up the all-white look. “It’s not exactly a breakthrough.”

  “You never know.” He looks disappointed though. “What else is in that drawer?”

  “Nothing, it’s wall-to-wall socks.” I open the drawer again. “See?” To emphasize my point, I start to pull the socks out and pile them on the floor. Decorating the bottom of the empty drawer is pink-and-white lacey-flower patterned liner paper. Typical.

  But the paper isn’t glued all the way. I lean in closer and pat the slightly bulging pouch in the middle. No thicker than a few pages. I rip off the liner like a Band-Aid, and we both gape at what’s hidden underneath.

  It’s a small stash of papers. A map of the Los Angeles County Metro. Cutout pictures of models and actresses. Printouts of open casting calls. Craigslist ads for room shares and shady modeling gigs. And money, nine crisp hundred-dollar bills. What the hell?

  He gapes at me, a spark of shrewd new respect in his eyes. “You were planning to break out of here.”

  Chapter 10

  DARK-EYED BOY

  “Yeah . . . figured that one out.” Looking dazed, she picks up the map and holds it clenched between her fingernails, digging into the paper version of Los Angeles like a cat clawing into a sweater. “Jesus. What a dumb, dangerous plan. Wonder how long I’ve been saving up for it.” And where were you getting all that money? I think but don’t say. The seamier possibilities would freak her out, and she’s already freaking. Her worried fingers are crumpling the page. I take the map from her hands, try to smooth it. “It’s not dumb to have big dreams.”

  “I guess. But Hollywood?” She snorts. “Small-town prom queen trying be a movie star—what bigger cliché is there?”

  She has a point there. “Still, you could have made it.”

  “No, actually I couldn’t have.” Her voice is flat as her fingers tick off the reasons. “I’m short, I’m bigger than a size two, and I don’t know anyone in Hollywood. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “You could have made it, Elyse. You have something.” I’m fully serious, but she groans and shakes her head. Something tells me to drop it. “Just don’t be down on yourself for dreaming.”

  “Dreaming.” She snaps her fingers. “I just remembered. Before I woke up this morning, I dreamed I was on a white beach with palm trees, celebrities everywhere. I guess I was obsessed.”

  “Then why hadn’t you left yet? What were you waiting for?”

  “Graduation, maybe?” She sighs. “Or more money. Or the return of my common sense.”

  The clack of skinny heels on the hardwood staircase makes us scramble. I launch myself at the stack of papers and cash, hurling it all back into the drawer and sliding my elbow across the sticky paper to reseal it. Elyse tosses an armful of socks over the top just as Liz stumbles in, hobbled by a small mountain of photo albums.

  I try for a winning smile. “What you got there, Liz?”

  “Oh, hi, Jim.” She smiles back at me, but it’s all lipstick. I can tell she’s less than thrilled to discover a tourist in her daughter’s bedroom. Then again—I can practically see the wheels turning in her innkeeper mind—I was only talking to
Elyse, with the door wide open. Is it really worth her saying something and risking losing my business? “We were just heading downstairs,” she says finally. “To look through some dusty old photo albums. Wouldn’t want to bore you,” she adds.

  Since I haven’t been lobotomized, I get the point. Tourist Jim is not on the invite list.

  I clear out of Elyse’s room and follow her and her mother down the stairs. Hoping to hang around within eavesdropping range, I wander into the breakfast room for a snack. The cheery oval table is bare, but there’s a bowl of cocoa-dusted dark truffles and a crystal decanter of port on the sideboard. I take a truffle, realize I’m starving, and grab two more. The heat’s already melted them a little, and the sweet chocolate liquefies on my tongue.

  Weird how I somehow knew these would be here. Maybe I really have stayed at Preston House before.

  I hear Liz’s and Elyse’s voices nearby and stealthily creep back into the hall. In the sunken front parlor, Liz perches on a high-backed striped sofa, plunks down the photo albums, and pats the seat beside her. Elyse sits down, but leaves more space between them.

  Seeing them side by side almost takes my breath away. It’s startlingly obvious they’re related. Liz is Elyse plus twenty years. Both small and curvy and fit, tan-skinned, wavy-haired, with the same sharp chin and big round eyes. They even carry themselves the same way, shoulders down and back, like runway models. I feel a sudden pang of sadness for both of them. It seems absurd to the point of cruelty that Elyse could not remember Liz. Hopefully seeing these photos will help.

  Craving something more substantial than chocolate, I head back through the breakfast room and swing open the kitchen door. And nearly run smack into the Bishops, the thirtysomething couple I talked to earlier.

  Before I can say hi, she hisses at him, “Don’t call me paranoid, I heard her texting you.”

  “For God’s sake, Luci—”

  “This trip was our last chance.”

  They’re standing squared off at the counter, their angry faces only inches apart. This is none of my business. I should go. But why haven’t either of them noticed me? Frank in particular is facing the door, but he’s not making eye contact or lowering his voice.

  “The damn text was from work!” His every syllable leaks contempt. “You know, the job that pays for your Botox?”

  It’s uncanny and weird, just like it was weird when Kerry the receptionist didn’t notice me till I got up in her business. Like it was weird when Liz didn’t notice me until I spoke up to protect Elyse. Is it just my imagination, or are people not registering my presence unless I speak?

  “If it was work, then show me. Show me your goddamn phone.” Her skinny bird-talon fist pounds the countertop. Then her eyes grow round and she gasps.

  And crashes to the ground in a heap.

  “Holy crap!” I rush over to her still form. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Oh, hey, Jim.” Frank gives me a casual wave.

  “Why aren’t you helping your wife?” I kneel down on the carpet and grab Mrs. Bishop’s wrist. I’m relieved to feel her pulse beating strong, regular. Her breathing’s deep, peaceful. “She’s fainted.”

  “Buddy, relax.” He whips open a BlackBerry from his pocket, tamps down the volume, snaps it closed again. “It’s just a heatnap.”

  “Really?” I remember that term from Wikipedia, but her sudden spill seems way too violent to have been a nap.

  Frank opens his mouth, but only a gasp escapes him. Then he too falls to the ground, his unconscious body landing only three feet away from his wife’s.

  Adrenaline pumping through me, I burst through the door into the dining room. “Help!” There’s no one in here. Liz can’t hear me from the parlor. A loud groan—or yawn—behind me sends me tearing back into the kitchen. To my shock, both Bishops are stirring again. Mrs. Bishop is already on her feet and with a smile she offers an outstretched hand to her husband. He groans and dusts himself off, then pecks her on the lips.

  “Ready to go antiquing?” she says. Purrs.

  He kisses her hand indulgently. “No man is ever ready to go antiquing, but I’d do anything for you.”

  Then, as if they’d never fought, they hook pinkies and waltz out the backyard door together. I watch them merrily swinging their arms through the backyard.

  What the hell just happened?

  Chapter 11

  ELYSE

  Liz opens a pale blue album. “This is the first one with you in it,” she says, a note of nostalgia catching in her voice, and I lean close to her, hoping to recognize myself.

  Hoping to remember.

  Instead all I see is a baby who could be anyone, and then a toddler with inquisitive green eyes and blond curls that grow longer over the course of years and pages. Within a few pages, she grows into a small, nervous-looking girl with pale braids bent toward an easel, painting, or hunched over a sketch pad, crayon in her hand. Tongue pressed against the corner of her lower lip.

  “You were like our own mini Picasso.” The corners of her eyes crinkle with amusement. “When I was a girl, I drew horses and princesses. I tried to show you how to do a horse, but you only wanted to draw one thing. Your imaginary friends.”

  “What imaginary friends?” My chest tightens as I think back to the woman pushing her empty stroller, the woman who might have been a hallucination. “Did you keep those drawings?”

  “Honey, there were so many drawings . . . you had so many imaginary friends, it was hard to keep up. Doc said it was a sign of creativity, but I was still relieved when you outgrew it all.” She ruffles my hair. “Those art supplies were getting expensive, whew. And now you’re all grown up and well-adjusted and you have real friends . . . coming out of your ears.”

  I stare at her. What is she talking about, normal and well-adjusted? As far as I’m concerned, I have one friend. Dark-Eyed Boy. Why can’t Liz keep her mind focused on the huge, gaping problem before us: my amnesia?

  I listen to Liz’s breathless remembrances of the “good times.” Thanksgiving dinner. Christmas morning. Birthday parties; how hard she worked on those cakes; how much fun the kids had breaking piñatas and pinning the tails on donkeys. The middle of the album is all me: first days of school, Halloween costumes, track meets. The elementary-school girl racing across the finish line has the same face I saw in the mirror, but her body hasn’t betrayed her yet. It’s still normal-looking: lean, straight lines like a boy’s.

  Then Liz turns the page, and without warning my stomach sinks.

  It’s just a picture of a family dinner table, decorated with a centerpiece of Thanksgiving gourds. Liz is wearing a pink dress, smiling up at a man in a blue plaid shirt as he prepares to carve the turkey. “Is that my father?”

  She nods and chuckles. “I remember you snapped that shot of Daddy with your new camera, you were so proud of that thing.”

  Looking at the big, sturdy, grinning man with the cleaver poised over the poor dead bird is sending waves of nausea over me. I avert my eyes. “I think . . . I might be a vegetarian,” I say.

  “Praise God.” Liz lets out a long sigh of relief. “It’s coming back to you! I knew it would.”

  “No, I was just guessing.”

  The next album is wedding pictures, a beaming young Liz who looks startlingly like the Elyse in the mirror, in a white princess gown. Half the album is empty, though, like someone just pulled out every other picture. I look for a clear picture of the groom, my father’s face, but it’s mostly Liz and her bridesmaids.

  She wants to zip through them quickly because I’m not in them, but I’m fascinated. “Is that the church downtown? Who’s that lady standing next to you in that one?”

  “That’s my mother, your Grandma Bets.” She points to the gray-haired lady in the flower-sprigged lavender dress. The woman doesn’t look healthy at all; in fact, Liz is helping support her on the left side while on the other side a guest is steadying her right arm. The guest is grinning with obscenely crooked teeth. Grandma Be
ts’s brilliant ruby necklace only makes her neck look more wrinkled. “Said she could rest easy now that she’d seen me walk down that aisle.” Liz’s ringed fingers drift toward her throat, and I can see the oval ruby resting against her collarbone.

  Hesitantly I say, “I’m . . . sorry for your loss.”

  Liz’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “Momma’s doing just fine.” She snaps the book shut. Creepy.

  The sound of tires winding up the driveway makes Liz hop to her feet. “Ah, that must be Candace and Aiden, the young couple from California.”

  Sure enough, when Liz opens the door, there’s a college-aged woman in a designer sundress, her chestnut hair in a short, tousled cut, standing beside a thin goateed man in his early twenties, dressed in dark colors. Between them are two black Samsonite suitcases. They introduce themselves to all of us and to each other as Candace and Jim.

  You have to hand it to Liz. When the real Jim shows up, she doesn’t lose her professional composure for even a second. “Welcome to Preston House,” she says with her warm innkeeper smile. “Come in, both of you. Candace, are we still waiting for one from your party?”

  Candace gives an impish grin. “Aiden dumped me last week, but we’d already booked the trip, so I decided to go anyway. I mean, I’m not going to miss fair weekend in Summer Falls just because of some guy.”

  “We’ll make sure you have a fabulous time and forget all about him,” Liz says, patting the young woman’s arm.

  “Solo vacations rock,” Jim tells her. “You really get to be one with the place you’re staying.” He stretches his arms and breathes a sigh of pure relaxation. “See? I think I’m already feeling the drop!”

  “The drop?” I say.

  “Oh my god, lucky!” Candace squeals with envy. “When my ex and I came last year, it took me, like, days before I felt any different. But then when I did it was awesome.”

  I have no idea what they’re talking about ‘feeling’—relaxation? But something about Candace’s perky laughter bugs me. It’s like she’s talking up some fabulous Disneyland ride. Not a real town where real people live. People like me.