Someone I Wanted to Be (9 page)

Kristy continued to watch me in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Leah!”

I said nothing.

“Leah, come on. Talk!”

I stared out the window.

Kristy turned into the school lot and parked in her regular spot. She unbuckled and curled sideways in the seat with her back to the door.

“First of all, I am sick to death of Victoria Miller! She’s an annoying, stupid cow. Leah, let’s talk. I’m sorry about what happened over the past couple weeks. Corinne explained to me that you didn’t mean to leave without asking how my mom was. Corinne says you didn’t know my mom went to the hospital. For a long time, it was just hard for me to understand because my dad said he told you. But, anyways! I’ve just been in a really weird head space with my mom and all.”

Kristy squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She picked out a curl and wound the hair around her finger.

“I’m sure it’s really difficult for you to understand what it’s like for me because your mom isn’t sick. Your mom just comes home and says, ‘Leah, what do you want for dinner?’ or ‘Leah, let’s go to the mall.’ For me, you know, it’s a little different. Corinne, you understand because your mom had ovarian cancer. When was that, Corinne?” She squinted at Corinne.

“It was Derrick’s aunt,” said Corinne, crossing her legs. “It was, like, three years ago.”

“Well, Leah, it’s just really, really hard for me.” Instantly, Kristy’s face was streaming snot and tears. Her nose turned bright red. “My mom is very, very sick. I need you to be there for me.”

I felt nothing but dull horror. “I’m sorry, Kristy. I didn’t mean to leave without asking. I didn’t know. I thought your mom was asleep when I left. Your dad said they were just making a quick trip to the emergency room.”

“God, Leah, I forgive you. I forgive you. It’s all right. Here, give me a hug.” She reached between the seats, grabbed my head, and mashed it into her crinkly, green-apple-shampoo hair.

I started crying, too. “I’m sorry, Kristy.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Kristy. “I treated you like shit, like shhhhhhheeeeeit.”

Suddenly Kristy shoved off me and leaned back against the door. She closed her eyes, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and left a shiny streak. Corinne stared at the dash with a philosophical expression.

Kristy ran her fingertips under her eyes. “What are you doing hanging out with that weird chick? Anita Sotelo! She is so bizarre. Watch out! It might be catching.”

“She’s not that bad.” How weak. “She’s smart and she’s pretty nice.”

“She’s OK,” said Corinne. She flipped open the mirror on the visor and applied more liner. “But her clothes and hair and makeup suck.”

Kristy widened her eyes. She shrieked. “Leah, check this out! Saturday, Corinne and I went down to Torrance Park for a few hours — sorry we didn’t call you; it was in the middle of that weird head-space thing — and, anyways, guess who we saw on the way home? Mr. Corduroy! He drives a sweet black Mustang. We were driving back on Torrance Avenue, and suddenly he was right next to us. He yells, ‘Pull over, girl! What’s with your phone, sweetheart? Come on, let’s party, girl! Let’s do it! You are so beautiful, baby. . . .’”

“Really?” I said. My heart banged so hard it almost blocked out her voice. “Weird.”

Kristy ran her tongue over her teeth and shook her head. “I’m just like, ‘OK . . .’ You know he’s kind of intense, but he’s so freaking good-looking.”

“Kristy.” Corinne pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned forward as if she had a sinus headache. “He is so gross. This is bizarre. He’s old! Please don’t.”

Kristy snorted and rolled her eyes at Corinne. “Bullshit. The dude’s hot. He got pulled over by a cop, so we didn’t see him again. I’m still kind of in trouble and promised my dad I’d be home by ten. That’s the only reason he let me go out.”

Some lettered jackets appeared by Kristy’s window. A lanky football player named Dwayne Lewis yanked her door open. Kristy screamed and fell laughing into his arms.

Tuesday. “OK, let’s do this thing,” said Carl Lancaster in his deep, manlike voice. Mrs. McCleary said no one could change lab partners again for the rest of the year. I was stuck with Carl Lancaster. “Where’s your lab book?” he asked.

“What? This?” I waved my lab book around. I’d lent my first one to Kristy so she could copy my notes, but she never gave it back. I had to buy another from Mrs. McCleary. Cindy was incredibly pissy about it. A kid tripped over an extension cord and knocked over a five-foot-tall stack of old textbooks. I ignored Carl and observed the chaos.

“Leah. Leah! Look at me. Yes. That is your lab book. OK, let’s open it up to a fresh page. Today is Tuesday, May second. We’re measuring pH in acidic and basic solutions.”

Kristy was watching Carl. She leaned over and jerked her body as if she were throwing up into her sink.

“Carl, back off.”

“Come on, Leah.” He leaned very, very close; I could see his excellent bones and all his distinct freckles. “We’re lab partners. We have to do this together. Your work is going to affect my grade.”

He was so close I could smell his tangerine breath and his neck. His neck smelled faintly like fresh bread. I could feel warmth rising off of him. I wondered if I stank like cigarettes.

He studied me with his calm green eyes. Half the people I knew had green eyes. Carl’s were ocean-colored — at least what I imagined the ocean looked like in real life. I never got to see it when we lived in Florida. In my mind, the ocean was green, sparked with little flecks of blue. Carl didn’t look mad, even though I’d blown him off in study hall the day before. He looked at me like he knew something. He looked like he was about to kiss me. Carl Lancaster! I was going to throw up.

But he didn’t kiss me. He pulled back and looked down at his lab sheet. We put on our goggles. He said in his radio voice, “OK, first we have to label these test tubes. How about you write the labels? First tube: distilled water . . . Second tube: dilute sulfuric acid.”

Something about his deep, steady voice and the long, slow way he said
sulfuric
made me relax. I leaned on the chipped lab counter. He put twenty drops of Solution A into the watch glass with a pipette. I moved a little closer to him.

I lay on my back, staring up at the picture of Damien Rogers and thinking that the muscle in his arm looked like an apple. He would be my boyfriend someday. I skipped lunch sometimes and did sit-ups in the tiny space at the end of my bed, because even if he thought I was beautiful just the way I was, like LaTeisha Morgan was beautiful, and our personalities were an excellent match, I wanted to be thin and look good for Damien. I wanted to look good next to him. It was the only way I could imagine myself with Damien — me being thin. I wanted to be ready.

I’d corralled Anita into a walled-off section of my mind. She was fine, I told myself. She had Iris and Maria to eat lunch with. I liked her, she was a great kid, but we were destined for different ways of life. I could not spend my high-school years with the members of the Anime Club. I still wanted to be a doctor but did not want to discuss that fact in public. I ignored her stares in the hallway, though sometimes the look on her face haunted me when I was trying to go to sleep. I constantly talked to myself, rationalizing and explaining so that it all made sense, because if I stopped and thought about it, it didn’t make sense at all and it felt terrible, like I was letting something die.

I found a twenty in one of Cindy’s old purses and bought some minutes. Ten minutes later, my phone vibrated. When I saw who was calling, the phone vibrated all the way through me. I flipped it open and held it to my cheek.

“Ashley. What happened with your phone? You got to keep in touch, girl.”

I closed my eyes and became another person. I was like a girl drifting through space. It was like being pure me. Nothing holding me back, no Cindy, no Kristy, no thunder thighs, no puke-green walls or black bars. I could feel his hand in my hair. Had I dreamed that?

“I ran out of minutes. I can only talk a little while.”

“Why didn’t you stop the other night when I was trying to talk to you? I ran a red to catch up and got pulled over by the cops. That was a goddamn close call. Girl, you need to —”

“Sorry, my friend wouldn’t let me stop.”

“Girl, you keep that phone topped up.”

“I’m sorry, but sometimes —”

“I want to be able to get ahold of you. Tonight I want to know how much you weigh.”

“What? No way. That’s creepy. I’m going now. . . .”

“Wait. Hold on, Ashley. Come on, little girl. Tell me how much you weigh.”

“Why?”

“So I can imagine holding you.”

I opened my eyes and looked at the clippings on the wall. Damien Rogers weighed 171 pounds in his socks. It said so in the newspaper.

“Ninety-three pounds.”

“Ninety-three pounds? That kills my heart. You’re so tiny. You’re such a little girl. So delicate.”

“I got to go now.”

“OK, sweetheart. Sweet dreams. How’s your mama?”

“Not good. Got to go.” I hung up and lay on my back.

My heart pounded like someone was inside knocking, wanting to be let out. Kristy, Ashley, and I were locked in a tiny room together, and the room was getting smaller.

I turned off the lights, put in my earbuds, and turned up Kid Cudi. I floated on the darkness.

The next weekend we didn’t go out. Kristy was grounded because she had a D in language arts, and Corinne had cramps. I didn’t answer Kurt King’s calls; I just listened to his messages. He left six voice mails and eleven texts. He said, “I need to see you, little girl.” He texted:
thinkin bout u babe.

Kristy was bored and kept calling. Saturday night, she rated the boys in our grade. “Carl Lancaster is gross. It’s just weird to like piano that much. He’s barely a two.”

Sunday night, I was getting calls and texts from Kurt King and texts and calls from Kristy. It stressed me out — sometimes their texts came in at the same time. I was paranoid that somehow their texts or calls would cross in my phone, or I’d hit some kind of reply-all, and suddenly Kristy and Kurt King would be talking to each other. When I finally fell asleep, I had a dream about a phone vibrating and lighting up on a table. I couldn’t answer, and I couldn’t turn it off.

Monday, we had a lecture in chemistry. I pulled my chair to the farthest end of the table and didn’t look at Carl. I was exhausted. I emptied my head of every thought and feeling and sat there as close to not existing as I could manage. Mrs. McCleary droned on for fifty minutes, but I didn’t hear one word. I would never be a doctor. Every ten minutes or so, Carl turned his head and gazed at me.

Mrs. McCleary announced that there was a test on Friday. The bell rang. Carl stood up and waited for me to go first.

In study hall, I sat with my head down on my book, my cheek against the silky, dirty page. All the kids around me stared at their phones.

That morning, for some stupid reason, I’d said, “Mom, I think I might want to be a doctor.” Cindy smirked at me over the top of her mug, then swigged down her coffee. “Pretty big for your britches, aren’t you, Leah? Pardon me, but I need to go to work.” She grabbed her red leather purse and slammed out the door.

I was stupid, I was fat, I was a loser. I lived in a hideous basement apartment that didn’t even have Internet. Nothing I hoped for would come true. Becoming a doctor was a stupid idea, a ridiculous fantasy. That’s what Cindy thought. That’s what almost the whole world thought.