by Rachel Vail
“Did they take you last year to get your eyes checked?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Ayuh,” she said. “I don’t see a form here.”
“Maybe they did, though,” I tried. “I think they did, yeah.”
She was unconvinced. I had to check that all their contact numbers on the form were still the same, while the Squad shifted from foot to foot behind me, waiting for slowpoke me to finish the heck up.
“Thanks,” I said to the nurse, when she finally let me go, and then wished I could take it back. What was I thanking her for?
I clomped outside in my boots, which Mom hadn’t asked me about when I put them on in the morning. Sometimes I wonder if my superpower is invisibility.
I stopped in front of the field, where some kids were playing catch with a football. Isabel, who was already there, having aced the test obviously, put her hands up. Milo threw her a perfect spiral. She caught it easily and tossed it back to Robby.
“You okay?” Holly said, suddenly beside me.
“There goes my career as a fighter pilot,” I mumbled.
“That’s your ambition?”
“Just kidding,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Holly said. “It probably was an eyelash.”
“Right? Do you go to get your eyes checked every year?”
“That’s not a thing,” Holly said.
“Oh, good.”
“Then again, yes, I do, but I got glasses in third grade, so . . .”
The football was coming toward my face, I saw at the last second. But only because I had turned to look at Holly, so I wasn’t paying attention. It wasn’t a vision issue. I put up my hands. All my fingers nearly shattered. At least my nose didn’t. The football fell on my foot.
“Oof!” Robby called.
“Maybe you do need glasses,” Ava said, passing me with Britney.
“You okay?” Milo asked, jogging over.
“Fine,” I said. “Just, you know, uncoordinated and going blind.”
“Oh, good,” Milo said. “If that’s all.”
I picked up the ball and threw it back across the circle. It wobbled a bit and didn’t quite reach anyone.
“Yeah, because other than that I am totally being recruited to play football for a bunch of colleges already,” I said.
Milo laughed. “Aren’t we all?” he said.
“Hundred percent,” I said. “Total jocks.”
“Hundred and ten,” Milo said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, without remembering quite what we were even talking about.
“Yeah,” Holly said. “We’ll all be on scholarship.”
I glanced at the Squad. They were all laughing behind their hands. I lifted my hand to my face and laughed too. Britney rolled her eyes, as she always does. I think it was like with me, against Holly, but it’s hard to say for sure.
Also, that possibility did not make me feel better. Worse, actually.
Milo was heading back toward Robby. I watched him walk, noticing the smoothness of it, how he seemed to glide instead of clunking down each step.
That’s why I didn’t notice the football coming right at me again.
Ava lifted her hands in the air in front of me. Her sweatshirt came up so a tiny band of skin showed between it and her jeans. The ball hit her palms like she had magnets in them.
After she threw a perfect spiral back, the bell rang.
“Wow,” Isabel said. “Ava just saved your life! You almost got hit right in the face with that ball!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thank goodness for Ava, because I’m apparently going blind.”
Isabel gave me a concerned look.
“Right?” I said. “I’m fully tragic.”
I rolled my eyes like Britney, so Isabel would know I was kidding, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. Isabel is so effortlessly cool, and I’m so effortfully not.
Going down the hill, I was in step with the Squad: next to Isabel, with Madeleine on her other side, and on the other side next to Britney, with Ava beside her. It had just happened that way. I could feel my cheeks prickling at the realization of where I was. Right in the hot center of the Squad. What to do? Act like that was normal? Drop back?
Holly was lagging behind us. Should I keep walking with the Squad or lag behind too? I didn’t want to screw it up by being overconfident, or under.
“Hey,” horrible Chase Croft said, jogging past us all. “Slowpokes!”
“Shut up,” Ava said to him, and bumped Britney with her shoulder.
Even though I am apparently visually impaired, I definitely saw that.
Ew, Chase Croft? He looks like a villain in a comic book, all bony-headed and tough, with his close-cropped red hair and big hands grabbing at everybody.
Ava leaned toward Britney to whisper something, and the four of them, the Squad plus Ava, all started laughing at the same instant. Then they sprinted down the hill, after horrible Chase, away from me.
So. I think my eyes are not my actual problem.
14
MOM SAID, “WELL, let’s check it out to be sure.”
The nurse had made her feel guilty that she never brought me last year.
“It was just an eyelash,” I explained. “I smooshed an eyelash. And that’s not even a thing, to go every year.”
“Yeah, so I thought, but apparently, the school thinks I neglect my children.”
“If only,” I said, which made her smile with crinkly eyes at me.
Still, she made me go with her to town, before I even got a snack or anything.
She must’ve called the glasses shop during the day, because they were waiting impatiently for us when we got there and Mom was all sorry, sorry as we were hustled into the back room, past the glasses displays to the medical area. I guess I had dawdled too long at the end of school, just casually hanging out in case anybody else was also hanging out, waiting for the Squad to finish tennis team practice, and wanted me.
The eye doctor had a scratchy voice, quiet and serious. She flipped through a bunch of different blurry lenses while I looked through the heavy binocular things, and she asked which is clearer, this? or this?
This, or this?
It was kind of fun, choosing. Up to me, just my opinion, nobody else’s.
When she was done using all her toys and machines, the eye doctor crossed her legs and nodded at me. “So,” she said. “I think you’d benefit from glasses.”
“Maybe I just have a smooshed eyelash.” I tried one last time.
“Nope,” she said.
I don’t know why it was bothering me so much, the thought of glasses. I hadn’t actually planned to be a fighter pilot. Not really. Or an astronaut.
Not in any organized way.
Okay, maybe an astronaut. A little.
Never told anyone because that is sort of a little-boy thing to want to be, maybe. Honestly, though, I think I’d be good at it. I like confined spaces, and math. Travel. Looking through windows. Floating.
But probably meteorologist would be better. And there isn’t a perfect-vision requirement for becoming the weather reporter, I don’t think.
On the other hand, maybe I’m not pretty enough to be the weather reporter on the news. Mom thinks I’m pretty but she’s MOM. My mom. Not critical like Samantha is to Ava. Maybe if she were, I’d be more pulled together and attractive. Breezy Khan on Channel 2 News is gorgeous, and subtly sarcastic when the anchors try to joke with her about the weather. Her voice is low and cool, and she always adds in details like what falling barometric pressure means, or interesting weather phrases, like “severe clear” or “sea smoke.” She’s my favorite.
She doesn’t wear glasses.
I don’t like the idea of something being wrong. Especially with me.
The
ophthalmologist herself had really cool-looking black frames and a serious manner to go with them, though. Maybe I could be like her.
Maybe I’ll be an ophthalmologist when I grow up. There are probably jobs that are harder to spell, but I don’t know any.
“It’ll give me a new look,” I said to Mom as we faced the overwhelming wall of glasses, trying for a good attitude, trying not to cry. An effort to make her not worry about me so much.
“What?” she asked, putting away her phone.
“Everything okay at home?” I asked. “Is Danny . . .”
“What? No. It’s Samantha, it’s nothing, it’s—what did you say about a look?”
“Glasses,” I said. “A new look. If I have to have glasses, maybe that’s a good thing.”
“True!” she said. “You always have such a good attitude. And you’re right! It’s always fun to reinvent yourself, get a fresh start!”
I turned away.
Maybe she thinks I’m ugly, and need to hide behind glasses. That’s why she agrees I need a fresh start. Am I ugly? Is that why Ava doesn’t want to hang with me now? And why is Samantha calling Mom, worrying her? Did Ava tell her she isn’t friends with me anymore, at least at school?
I decided not to think about whether Mom was embarrassed by me, or how I look. Or how hard she was trying. How big she was smiling, whenever she caught me looking at her, but not the second before she caught me. Then it was frowns all the way down.
“You look gorgeous in every frame,” Mom said. “I don’t know how we’ll ever choose!”
“Ugh, Mom, stop,” I said. Overcompensating?
Ava’s mom, Samantha, never says Ava looks gorgeous, even though objectively Ava is one of the prettiest girls in the grade. She and Britney, really, are the top two. But Samantha always says stuff to Ava more like, What’s going on with your hair, Boo? When her hair is, I mean, I would give a kidney to have her hair, smooth and shiny and strawberry blonde, instead of my frizzy mess of black.
When my mom compliments me in front of Ava, I can feel the anger radiating off Ava, like morning fog on the beach where you can barely see your own feet. Mom thinks it makes me feel good to get compliments like always gorgeous and it kind of does but also kind of makes me feel pathetic, like I’ll never actually be gorgeous so this is the best she thinks I’ll ever look.
People say everybody gets better-looking and cooler in high school, but what if for me, this is as good as I get? And Mom realizes it?
When Danny and I used to run races against each other, I’d win by a mile. Of course. I was older and faster. I gave him a big head start and then bigger and bigger, big enough so I’d logically have to run full out to beat him if he ran his fastest, his medium, at all. I never ran full out. I was always rooting for Danny to win, every single time. I have never rooted for myself to win a race in my entire life. Even, like, against Ava. I spend the whole time thinking, If I win, the other person will feel bad—so then I can’t. When I raced Danny, Mom would always yell TIE! when he finally crossed the finish line, way after me. It made both of us feel terrible. Mom was softening the blow of losing for him; I got that. He was way younger, but that’s why I gave him a big head start. It was never enough. As I ran I’d be yelling, GO, DANNY, RUN RUN RUN, COME ON, DANNY, YOU HAVE TO RUN!
I knew it was out of love that Mom said TIE! He’s a little fragile, she explained to me the one time I complained. Of course I thought, Wait, what, Danny is from Los Angeles? But she didn’t know that was my memory of fragile.
“He doesn’t have to be fragile,” I tried.
“You’re strong, and you know you won, so why would it bother you if I call it a tie?”
I didn’t want it to bother me, and felt terrible about myself that it did, a little. But not really because it deprived me of a victory in a race against my little brother. I actually didn’t care about that at all. But I remember wanting to scream at her: He can survive losing a running race when he was barely more than walking! He won’t ever RUN if he gets credit for a tie without making the slightest effort! How is he ever going to get faster if you tell him he’s winning already? THIS is why he’s always chosen last for teams at recess and gym class!!!
But I swallowed that yell down my little-kid throat. I knew it wasn’t (completely) her fault, just for saying TIE!, that Danny was always chosen last. Even if I wanted to blame her. Which would make it something she could easily fix.
Anyway, if I ever told her Danny got chosen last, she’d say that’s a horrible, mean system and she’d call the school and make them change it, and everybody would know why, and who was to blame. Not that she’d be wrong. But still.
“Niki?”
I took the pair of frames Mom was holding out for me and tried them on.
Mom fake smiled and said she just had to text Dad to check in.
I wandered toward the sunglasses with the lensless frames still on.
As Mom frowned at her phone, it rang. She twitched, then answered and said, “Hey.” So I knew it was Dad. I could hear Mom telling him that yes, in fact I did need glasses after all. She sounded a little sad about it.
I guess Dad had a lot of questions about the glasses situation because Mom was like, “Mm-hmm, I did. I’ll tell you about it when we get . . . Mmm-hmmm, yes, I did. She’s the one who . . . She is! Fine. See you soon.”
She hung up and shoved the phone into her pocket.
I’m the one who WHAT???
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Have we narrowed it down at all?” she asked instead of answering.
Her phone kept buzzing, but instead of answering it she just turned it off. She never does that.
“What’s going on?”
“I just want to be here with you,” she said. “Everything else can wait.”
“Okay,” I said, and tried not to grin like an idiot. I’m thirteen. I’m not sure I’m supposed to feel so happy about my mom wanting to focus on just me.
She held out another pair of frames she thought were cute. I looked in the mirror. I looked like a chubbier version of Holly.
Mom asked for my phone and took my picture in them. I made a pukey face.
“Gorgeous,” Mom said. “But I can’t tell if you like them or not!”
“I’m such an enigma,” I said, sticking out my tongue.
“You so are.” She smiled but like she was thinking about something else, then.
I put the Holly-like frames back. I didn’t want to look like I was trying to copy Holly, be two-of-a-kind with her. Better to be my one isolated elephant self.
Mom and I both tried on lots of different frames, including a super-blingy purple-and-rhinestones pair I almost had to get because they were so hilarious. The serious eye doctor shook her head at us but she was smiling, a little, then. We were that mom and kid, all relaxed and happy together, the perfect idealized version.
I imagined us from the outside.
We probably seemed so carefree and sweet. Just how Mom likes us to look.
Did they think we looked alike? At all?
She’s so tight and toned, from running three miles every morning with Samantha. I’m vaguer, softer. And of course, no boobs on me, yet. Mom says she developed late so there’s still hope, I guess. She didn’t even get her period until she was almost fifteen, but she was an athlete. Like the Squad.
I’m not an athlete. I wish Mom had forced me to stick with organized sports, so maybe I would have that as a thing, like the girls in the Squad do. I don’t really have a thing.
It’s important to follow your passion, my English teacher last year, Ms. Kissel, told us. She was so loving and positive, even though she was also sarcastic and tough. I loved her. For a few weeks, I thought maybe my passion was my big pink eraser, but that didn’t really lead anywhere. I still love it though. I like the color, I guess, and the shape, but mostl
y the possibility that no mistake is permanent. I can always erase it. Writing in pen stresses me out, which is why I got erasable pens this year, which is not strictly allowed, for tests, but otherwise my answers feel like tattoos. I always have my big pink eraser. But I don’t know. Maybe an eraser is not much of a passion.
I sometimes study pictures of Mom to see if I look like her at all. We both have hazel eyes. Dad’s and Danny’s are bright blue.
If I have glasses hiding my hazel eyes, maybe I’ll look even less like her. She wears contacts, not glasses, same as Dad. But no way I’m sticking my finger into my eye. I’ve seen them take out and put in contacts and it looks like they are poking out their whole eyeballs. No thanks.
After we made our final choice and got more eye measurements taken, we decided to have iced teas from the café next to the glasses store before we went home. On the sidewalk bench outside, taking sips from our sweating plastic cups, Mom and I stretched our legs in front of us, as if we were summer people here on vacation, nothing to do.
We were having fun, just sitting there in the slanted sun. Sometimes when it’s just me and her, we get along so well. I didn’t want to waste it.
“Maybe we should’ve chosen one of those crazier frames,” Mom said.
“The purple,” I agreed.
“Those were psychedelic,” she said.
We both laughed.
“Psychedelic,” I echoed, and we laughed some more.
“Those boots look so cute,” Mom said. “You don’t usually wear boots with those jeans. Is that the style now, with your friends?”
“I don’t know.”
She took another long sip of her iced tea.
She’d never say so, but I could tell she wanted to stretch out the time together too. Not just our legs. That made me feel proud, and then a little selfish, and then bad for her. Mostly I was just greedily happy for myself, hoarding the minutes and the calm, the sun and the joking.
When we got home, it turned out Danny and Dad had had a huge fight. So the rest of the night was about that.
Still, that time choosing glasses and sipping our iced teas all slow, that was special.