The Fine Art of Truth or Dare (3 page)

Nonna is obsessed with dirt,
American Idol
,
and bad luck. Since my birthday is March 17, she's convinced I was born with bad luck hanging over my crib. According to her, the fact that I am barely five one is due completely to Evil Number 17. Mom says the fact that I was due to be born on the twentieth—of
April
—has a lot more to do with my shrimpyness. Dad says that considering the fact that I only weighed three pounds then and weigh a hundred and three now, I should consider myself a champion grower. Mom also likes to point out that Nonna doesn't top five feet even in her black church shoes.

According to Mom, I was a perfectly beautiful little shrimp. According to everyone, Nonna went ballistic whenever someone
called
me a beautiful baby.
“Malocchio, malocchio!”
she spat at doctors, nurses, and visiting friends, hurrying to counteract their well-meant compliment (and, apparently, evil-eye curse), by waving the protective
corno
—pinkie and pointer up, other fingers folded—over my tiny head. “Like a wrinkled Ozzie Osbourne in a dress,” Mom mutters.

Mom and Nonna don't agree on much. Well, they are both completely convinced that they come first with Dad. And they love me with the same combo of high hopes and fierce, if misguided, helpfulness, leaning on me like mismatched bookends. Mom shoves from her side: “Such a diamond in the rough! Everyone can see that. Gorgeous bones. Bright as anything, absolutely endless potential, just needs some work . . .”

She speaks in Realtor-ese. I don't think she can help it.

Nonna shoves from her side: “
Bellissima! Bella bella Fiorella.
No, no, no purple! Always green, like the spring . . .”

She spends a lot of time telling me how
bella
I am. Apparently, it's okay now that the damage has been done. She puts all of her ninety-odd pounds behind the word, so it always sounds kinda like she's spitting, cursing the curse of the curse. That's Nonna.

I think maybe she believes that if she says it often enough and with enough force, it'll come true. Or I'll buy it, like the emperor's clothes.

Nonna is okay with faking things. Her favorite handbag is one she bought off the street from a guy who was also selling incense and diet pills. It's stiff and black, big enough to swallow small people, and she pretends not to notice that the metal plate on the front says
FRADA.
According to Nonna, if she believes and God doesn't mind, it's all good. She has pictures of Jesus, the Pope, and Robert De Niro over her bed.

I have my sketches, mostly of architecture—like cornices and pediments and bow windows, although I've been going through an ornamental door knocker phase lately, so the top layer has a lot of eyes and gaping mouths—covering two walls. Above my desk, I have one bit of Edward. There are plenty of prints of his work, but he did only two self-portraits (one is in the library at Willing), and only one has been reproduced, on a museum poster advertising an exhibition. It's my very favorite piece, a portrait bust in bronze.

Here's the thing. Edward's self-portrait in the school was like a first date. Through it, he said everything about himself that he would have wanted me to think: that he was handsome, sexy, confident. All true, but that's only the obvious stuff. Not the whole picture. By the time I found the bronze, I'd already read the bios and the collection of his letters that Edith's granddaughter published after his death. It was later in our relationship. I
knew
him.

The bronze is a completely different Edward, the warts-and-all Edward. He's older, by about ten years. It's the same broad forehead and thick hair waving back from it. The same slightly hooded eyes; in the painting, they make me wonder if Edward didn't go through life looking a little sleepy, and if that didn't make a lot of women feel wide-awake. But there are shallow lines next to the bronze eyes, and deeper ones bracketing the mouth, which is thinner than the painted one, and really sad.

Which makes sense when you see that the center of the piece, the most important part, is the jagged, gaping hole in the middle of his chest where his heart would be. It's called
Ravaged Man
, dated 1899, which is the year his wife died. Diana. He never got over her. I like the bronze. It's truthful. In it, he's truthful.

“Does all life suck?” I asked him as I slumped into my desk chair. I noticed the white paint I'd used was starting to chip. The pink was creeping back. “Or just ours?”

“Life sucks,” he agreed. He sounds a little British, even though he . . . well, wasn't. “Although I think that if I could live for seventeen years after having my heart wrenched from my body, you can survive another nineteen months until graduation.”

“You'd think, wouldn't you? I'm not so sure.”

“Not a good showing with the Frost, certainly.”

“Don't even go there,” I warned him. “I can't even think about that yet.”

“Fine. How is the weather?”

“I mean, I
knew
I would see him in class.” I let my head drop onto the desk with a well-deserved thunk.
D'oh.
“I see him in
every
English class. But today, after . . .”

“After the unfortunate Freddy moment?”

“Don't go there. I really don't want to talk about that.”

“Fine.” Edward shrugged. He does have shoulders. “Have you read any good books—?”

“He's so cute. And, you know, I kinda get the feeling he's
nice
, even if he is dating Cruella De Vil . . . And the
drawings . . .
Sorry,” I offered. “I probably shouldn't be talking about another guy.”

“I completely understand.” Edward is very understanding. “Besides, I am ravaged. I have no heart to give you. And the Bainbridge fellow is rather talented. The mermaid was really quite impressive.”

“Yeah, it was.” There had been two loose pages tucked into Alex's book. They'd been covered with incredible, unreal figures: slinky animals dressed up like forties movie stars, ghostlike people who looked like they were from Japanese woodblock prints, and an unfinished mermaid, with incredible wild hair and dozens of teardrop-shaped scales, half of them filled with smaller pictures: fish, cameras, airplanes. “I wanted to tell him how great his stuff is, but I completely froze.”

“No great surprise, that.”

“Thanks. Why do I bother talking to you?”

“Because you can, I suppose” was his reply. “I don't frighten you.”

“You should. You have a huge hole in your chest.”

“That's what you like about me, darling.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. Edward hadn't needed words to tell the world how he felt about Diana. “So what do I do about Alex?”

“Talk to him.”

“Yes, again, thank you. How do I start?”

“‘Hello'?”

“Masterful. And then?”

Edward sighed. “For heaven's sake, Ella, you're a smart girl. Think of something. What was it Evers said? ‘Be bold'? Be bold. Tell Alex his drawings remind you of Suzuki Harunobu, Hieronymus Bosch, and Hilary Knight all in one.”

“Oh,
that
would make me sound cool and normal.” My fingers traced the edge of the scar where it peaked under my ear. “It's hopeless. I'm hopeless.”

“Absolutely. Give up now.”

“You're not helping,” I said. “Why can't you be doting and supportive and say all the
right
things?”

Edward shrugged again. “You prefer the truth. Besides, I'm a metal head. What do you expect?”

Fair enough, although you'd think imaginary conversations with an object of desire would be a lot nicer.

5

THE GAME

“Okay. Sing first, or Truth or Dare? Sing, right?” Frankie had scanned the crowd at Chloe's. Apparently, he'd seen something he liked, because he knows his singing—his enthusiastic, reliably flat singing—will bring him to the attention of everyone in the room. He freely acknowledges that Sinatra he is not. “We believe in the importance of dancing well,” he informed me once, speaking for millions of gay men who might or might not agree. “Singing well is not mandatory. It's all about presence.”

I almost never sing in public, for all the expected reasons (cowardice, cowardice, cowardice, and cowardice) and because, between Sadie's good singing and Frankie's everything but, I would just disappear again. When I'm between Sadie and Frankie is when I'm most visible. Why would I mess with that? For me, Chloe's is all about the hummus and hanging with my friends. For Frankie, it's so much more.

“Truth or Dare,” I said around my first mouthful of spanakopita.

“Puhleeze,” he muttered. I didn't know if it was because I usually choose ToD and almost never choose Dare, or because the skinny, goateed guy at the mic was launching into “Oops! . . . I Did It Again.”

We turned to Sadie to break the tie. “Truth or Dare,” she said, surprising me a little. She usually and understandably sides with Frankie on stuff like this because she's a peacemaker and he's more likely to sulk than I am. Then she added, apologetically, “I'm starving. If I don't eat, I'll cry.”

Frankie pouted, but only for a few seconds. When it comes to Sadie and food, he's a prince. Especially when her diet is not going well, which is almost always. “Greek salad,” he said, sliding the platter in front of her, “takes almost as many calories to digest as it has in it. Really.”

I nodded my agreement. Sadie smiled (she's no dummy, but she has a great ability to believe in fairies and magic when it's important) and scooped a pile of salad onto her plate.

Chloe's: Greek restaurant, karaoke bar, and shoe-repair shop, is our favorite hangout for three very good reasons.

1. The food is cheap and decent.
   
2. The karaoke options are many.
   
3. No one else from Willing ever goes there.
   

We'd managed to snag our favorite table—one away from the stage, such as it is. It's really just a big sheet of plywood raised up on bunch of cinder blocks, large enough to hold a mic and a singer (or poet, stand-up comedian, or emcee, depending on the night) comfortably. It's not uncommon for a Motown song to inspire backup singers, but it's also not uncommon for them to fall off the back, especially if the song is “Stop! In the Name of Love” and the Supreme-alikes are enthusiastic.

“God, shoot him,” Frankie muttered, stabbing a pita triangle in the direction of the stage. “Shoot me.”

Sadie, clearly feeling much more cheerful with some sustenance in her, popped him with a gun forefinger. “Truth or Dare.”

“Truth. I'm eating.”

“Okay.” She sucked thoughtfully on an olive, then, “If you could commit one serious crime—and I mean a lots-of-years-in-jail kind of crime—and get away with it, what would it be?”

“Ooh.” Frankie narrowed his eyes in gleeful contemplation. “I like that one. A raid on the men's department at Barneys, maybe? A slow, painful death for certain elected officials? A forged check from a member of the Walmart family? Hard choice. Ah. I have it. I would steal the Hope Diamond.”

“It's cursed,” I told him. “Everyone who has owned it has died a terrible death.”

“Don't care. I want it.”

“Why?” Sadie was genuinely curious. “You couldn't exactly wear it around.”

“Absolutely true. Maybe I'd keep it in a shoe box. Or send it to Haiti. No one would ever know where it went, or what brilliant criminal mastermind was able to take it. I would be the eternal Who.”

I have to give Frankie credit; his answers are never boring.

ToD, as we play it, has two rules: no lying, ever, and no dares that would cause the sort of humiliation that follows you into adulthood. Since it's just the three of us, we're pretty good at respecting those boundaries. After two years, we've gotten pretty creative. You'd think we would know every last thing there is to know about one another, rendering the game something less than entertaining. We know
most
everything about one another. We also each know something about the others that keeps ToD fresh.

Like:

Frankie exaggerates. Everything. So ToD is a good way for Sadie and me to find out whether he actually did meet Marc Jacobs as he hinted after a trip to New York (no, but he did see him coming out of Bergdorf's), or locked lips with the cute sales boy at Sailor Jerry (yes, but cute sales boy has a boyfriend). It's also the only way we ever find out
anything
about his life at home. He never volunteers. He will, however, answer what we ask, even if he looks like the words are burning his tongue while he does it—as long as it's not about his brother's shadier side. And Sadie is desperately curious about Daniel.

Of course, Frankie almost always chooses Dare. And the one time Sadie tried to do an end run around that one by (gently) daring him to tell us the worst thing Daniel had ever done in his presence, he growled, “Not cool. Not cool at all,” and got up and walked out of Chloe's. He was there waiting for us at school the next morning, and nothing was ever said, but we haven't dared him to tell or asked about his twin since.

When daring Frankie, it helps to know that, deep down, he is just as shy and insecure as anyone. Yes, his fave pastime is dancing in front of the mirrors at Neiman Marcus in Helmut Lang clothing he can't afford. True, he sings frequently and enthusiastically at Chloe's. Absolutely, he walked up to the drop-dead gorgeous guy in the vintage Bowie shirt at Head House Books last week and asked his favorite ice cream flavor. Turned out the guy was straight (“No, just closeted” was Frankie's take), but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it had, after all, been a dare. He probably wouldn't have done it otherwise. The price of rejection is, quietly, too high.

As for Sadie, in ToD it helps to know that she loves to be asked about her plans for the future. She's not naturally garrulous, and no one outside our little cadre ever asks her anything about herself. She used to go to a therapist (one of
Philadelphia
mag's Top Docs, of course), but her mother put a stop to that when Sadie wouldn't tell her what happened in the sessions. Mrs. Winslow is pretty narcissistic. Sadie probably doesn't need therapy half as much as her mother—or most of the people we know. She's pretty centered. But she still likes to be asked. We never dare her to talk to strange boys. The only thing that scares her more than that is the concept of being naked in front of anyone.

And me? When it comes to dares, on the rare occasion when I take them, anything is possible. I trust my friends not to humiliate me; they take great pleasure in making me do things that involve climbing. “Life is short,” Frankie likes to announce with great solemnity as I examine walls, trees, and statues of dead patriots for footholds, “and so are you!”

The truths are often of the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing variety: serious stuff in fluffy wrapping. Like, “A genie grants you three wishes, but they all have to involve sex . . .” or, “If you had to confess one of your biggest fears to Amanda Alstead, what would it be?” ToD and Edward are my therapy. Which means the undertruths Frankie and Sadie ask can be a little brutal. But interesting.

Sometimes ToD is fun; sometimes it's legitimized prying. Sometimes it's our way of checking in. “How
you
doin'?” isn't in any of our characters. Well, okay, maybe Sadie's a little, but she's too sensitive to pry, and when someone tells Sadie to bug off, even if they don't really mean it, off she bugs.

“Why do you think we ended up here, together?” Frankie asked once at lunch when the three of us were crammed into a two-chair space at Table 12. Even Invisibles have a stratum, and to sit at 13 would be an admission of . . . well, something. When I started to point to my scar, he slapped my hand. “No. No no no. It's because we have private inner lives. They”—he gestured to the Phillites—“don't.”

I'm not sure that's entirely true. I mean, everyone must have some sort of inner life. The alternative is a little too zombie-creepy. But I know what he means. Social networking sites, texting in class, and vaguely incestuous dating practices all make secrets a lot less secret, and a lot less interesting. With the Phillites, it's all out there for everyone to see.

Frankie waited until the next singer started her rendition of “You Oughta Know” before turning to me. “Truth or Dare?” He always asks, just to remind all of us—lovingly, of course— just what a complete coward I am.

“Truth.”

He sighed, but clearly had one on tap. “Five things you find adoration-worthy about Alex Bainbridge, and if you mention his eyes, I will spit hummus on you.”

“I hardly adore—”

“Five. No eyes. Now.”

“Fine.” I thought for a sec. “One: He seems like actually a halfway-decent guy.”

Frankie snorted. “Halfway-decent? Such praise.”

“Oh, stop. Really nice, then. He seems really nice.” Despite the Cruella De Vil girlfriend. “Two: He looks like a god when he plays lacrosse. Ah! Don't you dare roll your eyes at me. We, as female animals, are genetically programmed to go for the potent combo of grace and power. Right?” I looked to Sadie for backup. She nodded with enough enthusiasm to make her hair bounce in a wild pouf.

I turned back to Frankie, who, I could tell, was going to launch into snarky mode. “Before you go all fake-wounded on me, Mr. Hobbes, I will remind you that you have admitted to having crushes on David Beckham, Roger Federer, and Gene Kelly—who is every bit as dead as Edward Willing.”

“Whatever. Third?”

“Third. You saw the drawings. Need I elaborate?”

“No,” Frankie conceded sulkily. “I'll give you that one.”

“Thank you ever so. Now, fourth . . .”

Fourth . . . It wasn't so much that I was stumped, as that I was reluctant. I just didn't want to share the fact that watching Alex in action, or even just watching him lounge in one of the school desks that are not quite big enough for tall boys, makes me feel just a bit breathless—and a bit angry (mostly at myself) that there isn't likely an Alex Bainbridge in my foreseeable future.

I hadn't wanted to look at him during the declamation disaster. Partly because looking at him, then at Amanda, who stared back with a combination of amusement and utter contempt, as I was getting started had been part of the problem.
Freddy . . . Freddy . . . Freddy
. But I had looked at him, helpless, after, and had seen him punch a snickering Chase hard on the arm.

Alex Bainbridge just might be a little bit wonderful.

“Can't do it?” Frankie poked me out of my thoughts. “I rest my case. This is not an adoration-worthy specimen.”

I could have conceded. It certainly would have been the easiest thing to do. I'm ordinarily a big fan of the path of least resistance. Not this time. “I'm merely sorting through the options.” I poked him back. “Just what is your problem with him? Even you've admitted he never did anything nasty to you. So what is it, really?”

Frankie gave me his lizard look, flat mouth and lowered eyelids. “I am the one doing the asking, madam. The next time I choose Truth and you're asking, feel free to waste your question on such inanities. Finish the list. If you can.”

“Fine. Fine. His breathtaking smile. And his money. If I had that money, I could do anything . . . everything I want.”

I'd just make a whopping kink in the rules, if not a fracture. I'd kinda lied. Not that having the kind of money the Bainbridges have would smoothly open the world to me, but that I cared. I could see Sadie and Frankie staring into me, trying to decide whether to call me on it. They let it go. Sadie is rich and, not her fault, doesn't really understand. Frankie, coming from a family with even less money than mine, does.

“Truth or Dare,” Frankie offered Sadie. I decided not to mention it was my turn to ask.

“Dare.” Sadie's not afraid of dares when she's had real food.

“Sing. Something old. Decent. And I mean
decent
.”

She nodded, flipping through the grease-spattered playlist. “I'm thinking about ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn.'”

“Oh, God,” Frankie groaned. “Too maudlin. I don't think I can handle maudlin tonight. Besides, it's a terrible song.”

“You just don't like anything recorded after 1970,” Sadie said tartly.

“Wrong. Very wrong. I do not like terrible things recorded after 1970. If you have to stick to”—he made a quick gagging motion—“power ballads, splash out. Aretha: ‘I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.' Otis Redding: ‘Try a Little Tenderness' . . .”

“Those are from the sixties.”

“I'm sure Christina Aguilera has mangled them in concert.”

“How about ‘I Want to Know What Love Is'?”

“I'll vomit, Sadie. I really will. All that wailing. Nope.”

“But you're not the one singing it,” Sadie pointed out reasonably.

Frankie blinked at her. “Your point?”

“Fine. ‘You Don't Have to Say You Love Me'?”

“Excellent choice.”

Sadie's mother had dressed her again. This time, it was a shapeless black sack of a dress with an artfully shredded hem. “She looks like a crazy cat lady,” Frankie said sadly as Sadie climbed the single step to the plywood stage.

She did.

She got a smattering of applause. Other regulars. Everyone else just went on with their hummus and playlists. The table behind us was in the middle of a raucous game of quarters. “Powel freshmen,” Frankie had dismissed them after getting a glimpse of their fake IDs and oversize sweatshirts. All straight, none cute enough for him. Just loud and growing louder with each successive pitcher.