Yesterday (8 page)

Christine bares her teeth like she’s about to growl. “You shouldn’t let him get away with that shit.”

I shrug. “I don’t care what he says. It’s not worth worrying about.”

“I knew he was an asshole,” Christine says, almost to herself.

“You told me you didn’t know him well enough to have an opinion about him,” I remind her.

Christine smiles slyly. “I lied. Not about knowing him but about having an opinion. What can I say? I have finely tuned asshole radar.”

We catch a bus back to Christine’s house with the stuff I bought (the clothes shopping will have to wait for another day) and hole up in the upstairs bathroom where she puts on rubber gloves and parts my hair four ways so she can get at my roots. She starts squeezing the dye onto the back of my head and by the time she’s gotten to the front the chemical smell’s making my eyes water. Christine says it stinks but that it’s never really bothered her eyes. She advises me to tough it out for the next thirty minutes and then we’ll be able to wash the dye out and meet a whole new me. In the meantime she sits on the toilet lid and I balance myself on the side of the bathtub.

Because I’m already technically crying and I’m sort of in the middle of becoming someone else and Christine’s the only person for thousands of miles that I’ve spoken to about
guys even a little, I impulsively ask her if she’s ever had a déjà vu about a person she’s never met.

“I get déjà vu all the time,” Christine says, “but not usually about people, more about things I’m doing.”

That sounds normal and I stretch my legs out in front of me as I think about the guy on Walmer Road and what he could be doing with his Friday night. He didn’t recognize me before and he’ll be even less likely to recognize me when Christine and I are done here.

The problem with knowing where he lives is that I can go back anytime I want to. I’m trying not to do that but I’m fighting with myself on so many fronts lately that I’m afraid I might give in. I’m almost equally afraid I won’t, that I’ll stop trying to figure out what really matters and why and end up just like everyone else.

“Did
you
have a déjà vu about someone you’ve never met?” Christine asks pointedly.

A pause to a question like that is as good as an affirmative response and after a couple of seconds I drag my teeth across my bottom lip and say, “A guy I passed in the street.” I can’t tell her about following him home from the hotdog stand outside the museum—that would sound psycho, even to someone who’s trying to be my friend. “It was such a strong feeling that I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“About
him
,” Christine qualifies, not looking fazed so far.

“About him, yeah, but also about the situation in general—how someone who I’ve never met could feel that familiar to me.” My ears are beginning to warm and I pinch
my left earlobe, causing Christine to reach down for a wad of toilet paper.

She hands it to me so I can wipe the dye from my left hand. Then she says, “Maybe you did meet him before, a really long time ago and your subconscious remembers it even if you don’t.”

“Maybe.” I get up to run my hand under the water and then sit myself back down on the tub again. “It just seems weird.”

“What’s weird about it?” Christine’s black-rimmed eyes study me.

“Well, if I
did
meet him a long, long time ago, how come I can’t stop thinking about him? You’d think he’d have to have been someone important, in which case I should remember and so should he.”

Christine stares contemplatively at the matching purple hand towels hanging beside me, next to the bath. “Past life,” she offers.

Her tone gives no clue whether she’s kidding or not and I say, “Do you believe in that?”

“Not really. But what do I know?” She tucks her hands into her lap and leans forward. “Maybe you should’ve tried to say something to him. Where did you see him?”

“On the way home from school earlier this week,” I lie. “But he doesn’t go to school with us—I mean he looked like he could be a high school student but not at Sir John A. Macdonald. I would’ve noticed.”

“Maybe not. You’ve only been going there two weeks. There must be a lot of students you haven’t seen yet.”

I raise my eyebrows as if to say she could be right but my mouth is downcast, like I’m not convinced.

“If you see him again you have to say something,” Christine coaches.

She has no idea that she’s making it harder for me to resist temptation. I blink back another chemical-induced tear as I picture the boy’s arresting eyes and perfect mouth. I’m driven restless by the thought that I don’t know what he’s doing at this very second, that I don’t know the tiniest thing about him except where he lives and that he likes hotdogs. It doesn’t seem right not to know.

I have to change that.

Soon Christine’s washing the excess dye from my hair and spraying on a leave-in conditioner. The dark hair framing my face makes my blue eyes stand out more. I was afraid my blond eyebrows would look stupid with black hair (Christine was afraid to blind me so left my eyebrows alone) but even that contrast looks sort of cool and once I’m finished with Christine’s hairdryer I stare into the mirror, feeling infinitely more like the external me matches the shadowy person inside.

When I thank Christine she says that if I get some of my hair chopped off, tease it like crazy and then we do my makeup right I’ll be pure Siouxsie Sioux. Having been impressed with the Siouxsie and the Banshees’s video for “Dear Prudence” I saw the other night, the suggestion makes me smile.

“I like it long, though, so I’m not going to cut it,” I tell her,
running my hand down a newly darkened strand. I brush it forward, flopping it over my eyes so I can hide behind it. “But we can work on the makeup a little bit and pick out some new clothes.”

“Oh, definitely new clothes,” Christine says emphatically. “Otherwise there’s not much point in changing your hair—you’d still look part preppy.”

Christine’s dad drives me home when we’re done experimenting with makeup (which mostly translates into pale skin and kind of scary eyes) and I hesitate before stepping inside my house, afraid my mom won’t be happy about the new look. But the first person who lays eyes on me is Olivia, who wrinkles her nose as I step into the kitchen. “You smell like chemicals,” she complains from her spot at the refrigerator.

“I know.” I move in close to her to peek into the fridge. My appetite’s been under control during the last couple of days—this feels more like a run-of-the-mill snack craving.

“And you look like an evil twin of yourself,” Olivia adds, reaching past me for the carton of orange juice.

“Thanks,” I say, sarcasm pooling on my tongue. “That’s exactly the look I was going for.” With no interesting leftovers to munch on, I close the fridge and seek out my mother. She’s up in her bedroom with the door ajar so it doesn’t occur to me to knock but as I swing through the doorway I see that she’s sitting on the double bed, her feet curled up beside her and a family photo in her lap. I recognize the photograph from across the room. It was one that was taken of all of us in an Auckland portrait studio just
before Christmas. There’s a snowy backdrop and the four of us are wearing Santa hats with fake fur cuffs and a fluffy white ball dangling from the end of them.

We were happy then, I guess. I wish I could feel that way when I remember it instead of being broken the way I am. When I look at old photos of myself, it’s like I never really existed.

I take a step back, sure I’m interrupting my mother’s memories. The floor creaks underfoot, giving me away.

“Freya!” my mother exclaims, her jaw tightening as she takes in my image. “What have you done to your hair?”

I clasp my hands behind my back and frown. “A girl from school helped me dye it. I wanted a change.”

My mother has set down the family photo and she straightens her legs, throwing them over the side of the bed. “It’s pretty drastic. Why didn’t you say anything when I was dropping you off?”

I shrug. “It’s not that big a deal and it’s my hair.”

My mother grimaces as she casts an eye back at the family photo. “But your real color is so lovely.”

My real color is something I’m not. If my mother and I have had a conversation like this before, I don’t remember it, yet the resentment rising up inside me is so familiar that it feels like second nature. I knew she wouldn’t approve.

“Ordinary,” I counter, my brain beginning to simmer at the thought of what my mother will say next, how she’ll make me feel like I’ve done something stupid or selfish. “And what’s wrong with wanting a change? Everything else
has changed lately. What’s the matter with me taking charge of something that
I
can control?”

My mother raises her eyes to meet mine again. “What’s done is done. It’s just so”—she squints as she examines my hair—“so dark. And your makeup … Did you think I would’ve tried to stop you? Is that why you didn’t say anything?”

“I don’t know.” She seems more surprised than angry and I push aside my instinct to fight with her. Why did I suspect her reaction would be worse? “I guess I didn’t want to have to stop and talk about it.”

I begin to explain to my mom, as best I can without giving some of my darker feelings away, how things here are different from New Zealand. I tell her I don’t want to look like the preppy/jock kids who listen to bad music, can’t think for themselves and tend to treat the less-popular kids like they’re invisible or worse. The bottom line is that I’m hoping she’ll give me money for new clothes to complete my transformation.

My mother listens with her head cocked. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can buy some new things,” she says eventually. “I guess I should consider myself lucky if your teenage rebellion amounts to some hair dye and dark clothing, huh?” She ventures a smile.

The smile I return is wider and warmer. “Very true,” I say, plucking the family photo from the bed and staring down into my own eyes. They’re sort of like my dad’s but the rest of my face is more like my mom’s. My parents are what
you would call attractive people—tall, thin and youthful for their age. Olivia seems to have a general predisposition towards good looks in common with them but not much else and as that occurs to me, a wave of heat washes over my body from head to toe, just like the one that overwhelmed me at the dinosaur exhibit in the museum. My head swirls with dizziness and I clutch my elbows and exhale slowly, fighting for control over my body.

“I find it hard to look at photographs of him too,” my mother says as she peers sympathetically up at me. “Difficult but comforting at the same time.”

I hand her back the photo, feeling, for the zillionth time, like a phony.

I do miss him. I’d give anything to have him back. But I can’t shake the feeling that my dad’s absence isn’t the only thing that’s the matter, that it’s not even the worst thing. It’s as if I’m … 
infected
by some quicksand type of suspicion.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

This moment. Here and now in my mother’s bedroom. That’s real. Christine dyeing my hair earlier. My sister downstairs … my
sister
 …

I sit down on the bed next to my mom to stop myself from collapsing. Sweat dampens my forehead. I press my palms into my eyes and then drag my hands out to my hairline, counting in multiples of three to stop the panic racing through me.

Three. Six. Nine. Twelve. Fifteen. Eighteen.

Stop thinking, Freya. Just count
.

Twenty-one. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Thirty. Thirty-three.

This is all the reality you need. Here and now
.

Thirty-six. Thirty-nine. Forty-two. Forty-five.

My mother’s rubbing my back, drawing me to her, and I rest my head on her shoulder, breathe measured breaths and count all the way to ninety-nine before I’m okay enough to stand again. Then I kiss her cheek and plod into my bedroom where I open the window to let in winter air. It’s a long time until I’m calm and cool enough to quit counting entirely and when I reach that place, the blond boy from my dream is there too. He looks okay. Normal. Not furious and feral like the last time. He knocks his arm affectionately against mine and says, “You’re
all right
, Freya. You’re
okay
. Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”

I want to believe him.

The boy’s lips form a goofy, lopsided grin, like he’s aiming to make me laugh. I recognize the funny expression just like I recognize him. He makes me feel better and it’s not the first time.

When I wake up—from a dream I didn’t realize I was having—I’m smiling into my pillow. My bedroom’s freezing and I tug a sweater over my head and pull the window shut. I climb under the covers and quickly shut my eyes, trying to find the place I left the boy. Trying to find the Freya I was in my dream.

T
he boy eludes me. My dreams are of other things. Standing silently next to my mom on an ice rink in my bare feet, my entire body numb. Christine lopping off my hair as Seth watches, telling me I should get to know him better. My father yelling at me that I’m selfish.

I shout back that he’s the selfish one. Too selfish to really be dead.

When I wake up again I feel terrible for screaming at someone I miss so much. I’m so fucked up inside that maybe it would be better if I were the one who’d died instead.

But I can’t even feel that properly because as fucked up as I am, scrambling after delusions and dreams while distrusting what’s as plain as day in front of me, I know I want to live. I just want living to feel the way it should.

I spend the conscious hours of my weekend trying not to think because it seems really letting myself go—allowing my mind to wander beyond the boundaries of everyday
life—risks loosening my grip on reality to a point that scares me stiff. I can’t handle one more doubt or feeling of suspicion.

On Saturday night and Sunday afternoon I shove all my brightly colored clothes into a garbage bag that I hurl into the back of my closet. Then Mom, Olivia and I go out for a late lunch with Nancy, who acts as if I look the same as ever but then asks if I’ve been having any more headaches lately.