Lucid (26 page)

“No big surprise.”

“Don’t do that. You lost the Super Bowl. It was down to two actresses in the entire world. And you were one of those. And only seventeen, with no major credits, because you blew a huge director away. Here’s to you.” He lifts his glass in a toast.

I stare at him. And I know what I have to do. “Can we step outside for a second?”

He looks at me curiously. I stand up. So he does too. I’m already walking toward the door so he can’t change his mind.

It’s cold on the street, and I’m hugging myself with my back to the door and therefore to him. I hear…

“Are you okay?”

I turn around quickly, stand on my tiptoes, take his face in both my hands, and kiss him with everything I’ve got.

He kisses back right away. As if he’s been waiting for this all his life.

Just like I have.

A
s I brush my teeth this morning, I can’t get that kiss out of my mind. Not the one James and I shared when he dropped me off last night. We kissed for twenty glorious minutes in his car parked around the corner from my house, a spot I will probably refer to as heaven from now on. But it’s the kiss outside of Little Owl that I keep thinking about.

On the one hand, I sort of know that I’m Maggie, and that I’m doing and feeling everything she does when I dream I’m her. And I know that means tasting her food, feeling her toothache, but I sort of push that to the back of my mind, and I think she does the same with me. And that’s because neither of us wants to deal with the unreality of the dream. We’re more comfortable feeling like we were watching someone else’s life.

But that kiss was different. I can’t pretend I didn’t feel it. It was thrilling, and yet it was nothing like the feeling I have when James
kisses me. And I guess that’s the reason. James kisses
me
. But
Maggie kissed
Andrew
. She’s the kind of girl who takes the lead, who goes after what she wants, takes the risk of being rejected in a way so humiliating I know that I couldn’t have recovered. I’m the “girl.” I have to sit back and be all passive, and pray that my feminine softness will attract him. Maybe that’s why I invented her. Because I want to be like that, I want to make my own life happen.

I go downstairs, and though I don’t notice it at first, Jade is sitting at the breakfast table. I almost speak to her, as if I’m Maggie, as if we are in the West Village. All of this happens in half a second. A bolt of terrible fear rips through me; I shut my eyes tightly and pray that someone else will be there when my eyes open. I count to three. I open them. And she’s not there—Max is.

It’s a totally understandable thing. In fact, it’s astonishing that it has never happened before. But it hasn’t. Ever. And it scares the shit out of me. I go and hug Max, just to be sure he is real. He likes it, which is also a surprise.

“Maybe we should get out Mom’s old telescope from the attic and look at Bill’s stars,” Max suggests.

“I love that idea,” I tell him. Though the truth is I don’t. I’m tired of being sad. I want to feel how I felt with James yesterday. I want to feel like that all the time.

On the bus ride to school, I listen to my iPod and stare out the window, remembering moments from yesterday that make me blush. I downloaded a flamenco album last night, and as the houses and woods on our route blur by, I imagine dancing to this music for James. In my mind, my body moves in graceful, rhythmic ways it never has before. I pull out my phone and text him that I’m excited to see him.

The instant I enter the school, it seems that every eye is on me. Either I forgot to put my pants on or James has spilled our beans. I turn off my iPod and hurry to my locker. There is whispering as I pass, and girls I barely know glare at me. All I can think about is finding Gordy. So of course I can’t. He isn’t at his locker or in his homeroom.

Lila ambushes me, pulling me into the girls’ room.

“Tell me everything. Absolutely everything,” she begs as she checks the stalls to make sure we’re alone.

“Who did he tell?” I ask.

“The Weed? He sort of told everybody, but not on purpose. He walked into the Marble last night and mentioned to no one in particular that you guys had come by for donuts, but you wouldn’t let Weed treat you. He just wondered what was up with that.”

In other words, if I let him buy me a donut, I wouldn’t be a pariah this morning. Something to remember.

“You slept with him. Don’t deny it.”

“Are you kidding? I barely know The Weed.”

She grabs me by the ears. “I am your confidante in all matters juicy, and it really hurts my feelings that you wouldn’t tell me. And everyone thinks that you and I have a problem because I didn’t know.”

“First, it’s none of your business. Second, it’s none of anyone’s damn business. Third, of course I haven’t slept with him; we’re just starting to get to know each other. And most importantly, why does everybody hate me this morning? Is Amanda talking shit?”

“Everyone hates you because they’re jealous. Even if they’re not jealous because you scored James, and believe me most are, they’d
just be jealous because you’re in a relationship. It’s high school, remember?”

“Does Gordy know?”

She stares at me silently, as if I asked an utterly random question.

“What’s the difference?”

“Good point,” I say. “I was just curious.”

I skip homeroom. At first, I thought I’d just hang out in the bathroom, but people keep coming in and pretending they aren’t staring at me. Kelly texts me asking if I’m okay.

I skip first period and go to conspire with Kelly, who works in the library during her free first period on Mondays. I help her shelve books so we can whisper and I can be out of the spotlight, hidden in the stacks.

“What has Amanda been saying?”

“Absolutely nothing. She’s just going around with this noble, hurt look like she has too much class to actually call you out as a home wrecker. This way she doesn’t have to lie, and everybody believes the rumors.”

“Which are that I stole her boyfriend?”

“By sleeping with him.”

There it is. And there’s absolutely no way to do anything about it, ever. I try to shrug off the fact that I will be our high school’s resident bitch and slut and cut to the chase…

“Have you seen Gordy?”

“He was there last night. And practically got in a fight defending you. He said James was a good guy, and the idea that everyone was sitting around talking about someone’s sex life, let alone making you out to be a slut, was just about the lamest thing he’d ever heard.”

I want to cry. And Kelly just says, “I know.”

I rub the worn spine of a book on geodes. “I know you don’t think James is worth it.”

“I said I didn’t think he would ever really give his heart for keeps. And I guess I’m still worried that’s the case. But you’re a big girl. I still believe the day will come when Gordy is for you and you are for Gordy. And I’m betting he’ll still be there.”

I decide to eat lunch inside with the nerd herd, the only crew that doesn’t seem to be tapped into the rumor mill. And I cut sixth period and go to the darkroom. While I’m developing candids for the yearbook, I realize half my roll is of James. I know I’m avoiding him. I don’t know how to have a boyfriend. I have no practice. I’m worried all this talk is going to put him off me. I’m just certain I don’t want to be seen with him at school today, under the microscope of everyone staring at us and making up their own stories. I text him that I want to see him after dinner. And he writes back immediately,
K
.

I go out to the parking lot and take Gordy’s hide-a-key from under the hood of his truck and wait for him in the cab. When school gets out, I think about ducking out of sight but don’t want to alarm Gordy when he finds me stowed away. Just as I’ve convinced myself I’m being dramatic and ridiculous, an amazing number of female passersby stare at me with a variety of nasty looks.

A senior, who I’ve actually never spoken to, makes it her business to walk away from her jackal pack and knock on the window, which I foolishly roll down, permitting her to say…

“I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

I struggle to channel Maggie.

“Explain yourself,” I demand calmly.

“You little bitch. I think you know what I mean.”

“Not only that, I think I know what you are.”

And I roll up the window. Which she spits on. I then recall that she was the girl who got two weeks’ suspension in the fall for ripping Mily Burton’s earrings out in the girl’s locker room.

Why do they care? The truth is they don’t. They don’t care about Amanda or me or the morality of who is sleeping with who. They are just on autopilot. This is what you do in high school. Let’s hope Columbia and the rest of life find bigger fish to fry.

Gordy shows up. He seems glad to see me. This makes me hope that things are going to be easy. His feelings aren’t hurt. Maybe he’s even happy for me.

“So what’s new?” And he laughs.

“You’re sharing your truck with Hester Prynne.” And immediately fear that he won’t place the reference. “She’s—”

“The girl in
Scarlet Letter
, yeah. Eighth grade, I got an A, you got an A–.”

“Well, now it’s a scarlet A–.”

He laughs again. “We could sit here and have everybody start saying you’re cheating on your boyfriend with me. Or we could just get the hell out of here.” He roars the truck’s engine and pulls out.

On the drive to Maxwell’s, I listen to Gordy rant about Amanda Porcella as if it’s her duty to clear my good name.

“She was never dating him in the first place.” He snorts.

“How do you know that?”

“Because you wouldn’t be dating him if she had.”

See, that’s Gordy. I can do no wrong. Even though I completely
betrayed him. I know deep in the pit of my stomach that I’ve betrayed him—the thing is, I just haven’t quite figured out how. Is it because I didn’t confide in him immediately? Why would that be a betrayal? I don’t feel I betrayed Kelly. So why is this different? It’s different because Gordy and I had that talk on my birthday about what would it be like if we ever dated. And I try never to think too much about whether Gordy really likes me in that way. But now I’m wondering. And I’m worried today will be the day I find out. And that would be the worst possible way.

The shipyard is quiet, just the yard guys working on the engine of a boat, getting it ready for the water. We walk down the dock and find some sunny planks and dangle our legs over the edge. The mooring field is still empty, a little lonely. But it gives us an open view of the sound and Ram Island and Watch Hill behind it. The light is crisp and clear, but I’m not in the mood to appreciate it.

“So tell me about it,” he says, to my surprise. “How’d you guys get together?” He stares out at the island like we’re talking about nothing in particular.

I don’t know how to begin, so he fills in the silence: “He turned out to be the guy you’d thought he was after all, huh?”

“When I said that, it was because I thought he had a girlfriend, not Amanda, someone else. Turned out he didn’t.”

There’s a long silence, but not an uncomfortable one. He clearly has something on his mind to ask, and I want to give him the space to do it.

“So is he kind of the first?”

A short laugh escapes me.

“First what?”

“You know, the first guy you ever really cared about. I mean, not like you and I care about each other, I mean, you know.”

The corners of his eyes squint slightly; it could be glare from the water since he’s looking straight out, not at me. He’s asking if this is my first betrayal, or if there was a James before James. And the thing is—there was.

But I could never tell him. I have no choice but to flat-out lie.

“That’s a good question. I guess I don’t really know yet how I feel about James or where it’s going. But I am excited. And I guess in a way that’s new for me.”

“Yeah, usually you’re basically skeptical and underwhelmed by the human race. Except for me, of course.” Then out of nowhere he says, “So you guys are gonna go to the prom, then.”

“Hell, no. You and I are going to the prom, whether you like it or not.”

He turns now and looks directly at me.

“No, we’re not,” is all he says. But his liquid eyes say so much more. They scream at me that I have hurt him, that he wants to be the first guy I ever really cared about, and that I have led him to this vulnerable place recklessly.

I can’t bear it. I start to cry, which is weak and somehow makes me cry harder because I feel like by crying I’m trying to make it about me. But he doesn’t comfort me. He doesn’t ask why I’m crying. Because he seems to know. And he won’t look away to make it any easier on me. Which I sort of respect, and it tells me that he has more backbone than I’d thought. Turns out I can do wrong in Gordy’s eyes. And I have.

“This doesn’t change anything about us,” I say. “Past, present, or future.”

I’m hoping for a smile, but it doesn’t come.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing’s wrong. Just don’t talk to me like that anymore. Okay?”

I have the choice of pretending I don’t know what he means. And even though it makes me really cry, I just can’t do that.

“Okay,” I manage. And in that one word, I acknowledge that I have flirted with him all my life, unconsciously and intentionally, because I want to keep him as an option. And I pretended that there could be no consequences to that. And now I understand what a thoughtless, reckless, really despicable person I am. And he doesn’t hug me to comfort me, or deny the truth of that in any way. Because we are no longer what we were and we aren’t what we might have been.

All he says is, “I’ll drive you home.”

I don’t cry on the way home. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look angry at all. Just strong and perversely very attractive. When we get to my house, he jumps out like always, and I let him open my door. He gives me a real strong hug and says, “We’re okay.” Which makes me almost cry again, but I contain myself. He just gets back into the truck and drives off.