Dreamland (15 page)

“That's Dave,” the girl beside me said. “He's making Hamburger Helper. I'm Corinna.”

“Caitlin,” I said, and she nodded, smiling at me. “Rogerson has problems with introductions.”

“No big deal. We're definitely not formal here,” she said, flicking her wrist absently, clattering the thin silver bangles she wore there. Then she reached forward to stub out her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like Texas, picking up the remote with her other hand to flip channels. She cruised by MTV, a political news show, and two old movies before finally landing on an infomercial about acne medicine, where they were interviewing a kid with horrible skin, all red and splotchy and riddled with bumps like the surface of the moon.

“Oh, man,” she said, reaching over the arm of the couch, feeling around for something, and coming up with a blue ceramic bowl and a bag of pot. “That poor
kid.
Look at that. Like high school isn't bad enough, you know?” She opened the bag and quickly packed the bowl, pressing down on it with her index finger. “I had acne in high school, but it wasn't that bad, thank God. And I still couldn't get a date. But you probably don't have that problem, right?” She fumbled around on the coffee table, moving a
TV Guide
and two emery boards to unearth a lighter. “I mean, you have great skin.”

“Oh, well,” I said, watching as she lit the bowl, drew in a deep breath, and held it a second before slowly letting out a long stream of smoke. “Not really.”

“Oh, you do, though. It's all genes. Does your mom have good skin?”

It was strange to think of my mother, here, but her face popped into my head instantly, smiling, lipstick perfect. “Yeah, she does.”

“See?” She tapped the bowl with the lighter. “Genes.” And then she handed it to me.

Up until that point, I'd only smoked a few times: with Rina, experimenting ; at one or two parties with the more rebellious of the jocks; and the night I'd seen Rogerson's dad hit him. I'd never cared one way or the other for it, but being in that little farmhouse, on a sunny afternoon, sitting in the corner of that big comfortable couch talking to Corinna, it just seemed
right,
or as right as anything technically wrong could be.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it, lighting the lighter and drawing in a big hit of smoke, which immediately set me to coughing like crazy. The next one went down easier. And by the third, I felt like an old pro.

Afterward, Corinna lit a cigarette and offered me one, too, which I took, lighting it and smoking like I'd been doing it all my life. We sat there together, smoking and watching the acne doctors work their magic. By now they'd moved onto a cheerleader with bug eyes and skin so bad it seemed like she was wearing a big red mask.

“I admire her so much,” Corinna said, picking up the ashtray and moving it onto the couch between us. “I mean, being a cheerleader and getting up in front of people with that face. She must really have some self-esteem, you know?”

“I know,” I agreed, tapping my ash and pulling my legs up underneath me, like Corinna. “Plus cheerleading is so awful anyway.”

She looked at me, tucking a few blond strands behind her ear, her bracelets tinkling against each other, like music. “You think so? I always wanted to be a cheerleader. And a prom queen. And I was, like, neither. Not even close.”

“I'm a cheerleader,” I said, taking another drag off my cigarette. “And I hate it.” And there it was, the truth, popping out when I least expected it: I
did
hate cheerleading, always had. And this girl, this stranger, was the only one I'd ever told.

“Wow,” she said, laughing, “that was, like, so
direct.
I love that.”

I laughed, too: It seemed funny to me now, almost hysterical in fact. My head felt fuzzy and relaxed and the fish on top of the TV just kept swimming, around and around, and Corinna flipped her long blond hair, smiling that cat-smile. Something smelled good from the kitchen and it was a lazy Sunday and everything was okay, suddenly—as okay as things had been since Cass left and the summer ended—even if just for an instant.

We sat there, watching the infomercial and talking, for what seemed like a long time. Corinna told me she worked at Applebee‘s, waiting tables, producing her ASK ME ABOUT SOUP 'N' SKILLETS! button from under a couch cushion. She and Dave had been together since high school—they'd gone to Jackson, too, graduating five years earlier—and sometime soon, they were planning to move to California.

“Palm trees, movie stars,” Corinna said with a smile. She was so nice, I felt like I knew her already. She reminded me of Cass that way, the kind of person you felt friendly with at first sight. “I can't wait to get the hell out of this place.”

A few minutes later, as they were showing the After pictures of both acne victims, the kitchen door swung open and Dave and Rogerson came in. I'd forgotten, temporarily, that they were even in the house. Dave was carrying the frying pan, Rogerson a stack of plates.

“Dinner is served,” Dave said, kissing Corinna on the top of the head as he sat down beside her.

“It's lunchtime,” she told him.

“Lunch then. Whatever. Anytime is a good time for Hamburger Helper à la Dave,” he said, passing his hand over the frying pan with an exaggerated flourish.

“Which means,” Corinna explained to me, “that we didn't have money for hamburger this week so it's just noodles.”

“Better for you anyway,” I said. “A diet heavy in meat causes heart disease and high blood pressure.”

Dave raised his eyebrows at me and smiled. He had short brown hair and bright blue eyes and looked, strangely, a little bit like Mike Evans. “I like this girl,” he said to Rogerson, handing me a plate and a fork.

“That's Caitlin,” Corinna said, digging into the pile of noodles on her plate. “She's a rebel cheerleader.”

“Ah,” Dave said. “My favorite kind.”

“Mine, too,” Rogerson said, sliding his arm around my waist and forgoing the food as I leaned back against him, eating my Hamburger Helper—which was, quite honestly, one of the best meals I'd ever eaten.

“Oh, Jesus, Corinna,” Dave said as he looked at the TV, where they were showing the Before picture of the cheerleader again. “Why do you always have to watch this crap?”

“Hush,” Corinna said. “Eat your food.”

“She's obsessed,” Dave told us. “This acne commercial, it's on every single time I come home. I don't
get
it.”

Corinna smiled at him, reaching to smooth one hand over his face. Her bracelets fell down her arm, one by one. “Just one more time,” she said, putting her now empty plate on the coffee table. “I just love to see a happy ending.”

So we all sat there, silent, our eyes fixed on the pock-faced cheerleader, watching the Before and After as the acne medicine worked miracles, smoothing over bumps, wiping away scars, changing her face, her future, her life.

As December began, when I wasn't in photography class with my mother and Boo, continuing my rapid falling out of favor with the cheerleading squad, or listening to Rina wail about her love life, I was at Corinna's. It was the only place I felt like I got some peace of mind, and I found myself drawn there whenever things got crazy. I'd creep up the front steps and knock softly, always worried I was interrupting something, and she'd yell out for me to come in. When I pushed the door open I usually found her sitting on the couch with a cigarette in one hand and the remote in the other, smiling as if she'd been waiting for me to show up all along. We'd sit on the couch, smoking, and watch soap operas, eating frozen burritos and talking while the world outside went on without me.

 

I'd discovered that Corinna and I had a lot in common. Besides the fact that we'd both gone to Jackson—she was three years ahead of Cass—her mother and mine were each Junior Leaguers, and she'd grown up in Crestwood, a subdivision on the other side of the highway from mine. She said she'd been a geek her freshman year, doing time in student council and dance committees, until she met Dave, who was two years older. She fell in love with him and became, in her own words, a “burnout,” spending more time in the parking lot than in class. In her yearbook, which she kept on the coffee table, there was a picture of her sitting on the hood of someone's car in cutoff jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt, barefoot and wearing sunglasses. She was laughing, beautiful, even then.

For graduation, she'd gotten a tiny green vine tattooed around her left ankle, and Dave had given her the first of the thin, shiny silver bracelets she wore on her left wrist. He had continued to give her one for every Christmas, birthday, and Valentine's Day since. They clinked against each other whenever she walked, or gestured excitedly, or reached to brush her hair out of her face—Dave said it was her theme music.

But what I liked most about Corinna was that she liked
me.
She was pretty, smart, and funny but I didn't feel like I faded out when I was with her, like I always had with Rina and Cass. I loved her easygoing manner, hanging on every one of her horror stories about waitressing at Applebee's and her own wild high school years. She seemed to have the perfect life to me: independent, fun job, living with a man who loved her in their tiny, funky farmhouse. I could see me and Rogerson like that, someday. Us against the world. It was the way I imagined Cass living in New York with Adam, starting over all on her own. Being with Corinna always made me miss Cass a little less.

She didn't talk to or see her family much, even though they lived right in town. One afternoon we went to the grocery store and bumped into her mother, leading to a strange, awkward exchange in the frozen food aisle that made me so uncomfortable I slipped off to the produce section. Her mom looked a lot like mine, with the blond bob, khaki skirt, conservative V-neck sweater, and pearl earrings. She was buying salad dressing and scallops, and when she asked Corinna about Dave her nose wrinkled just slightly, as if she'd gotten a sudden whiff of something rotten.

Afterwards, riding home, Corinna chain-smoked cigarettes, hardly talking except in small argumentative spurts, as if her mother was still there, arguing back.

“They never even
tried
to like him,” she said, hitting the gas to pass a slow-moving school bus. “They hated him on sight. But it was never really about him. They had already decided they wanted me to be chaste, go to college, and be a lawyer. It was always about what
they
wanted.” Then she hit the volume on the radio, cranking it up to drown herself out.

We drove on, and a second later she reached forward, turning the sound down again. “I mean,” she added angrily, “they'd already, like, decided exactly what I was supposed to do, and be, for God's sake. I never even had a say in
anything
.”

I nodded as she twisted the volume up, the speakers rattling around us. We drove on, whisking past the dairy farm at the top of the road, the smell of cows and manure wafting in through the open window.

“And now,” she said, reaching impatiently to cut off the radio altogether as we bumped down the dirt road to her house, “they're so
disappointed
in me. Like I've let them down by not doing everything they planned. I can see it in their faces. Like waiting tables is so awful. I'm not costing them anything, for God's sake. I mean, I can't even afford to go to the dentist, but do I ask them for help?”

“No,” I said as she yanked the wheel and we sputtered to a stop behind Dave's truck.

 

“No,” she repeated. “Exactly. I don't.” She got out of the car, grabbed her one bag of groceries, and slammed the door. I followed her up the steps into the house, where Dave was sitting on the couch in jeans and a Spam T-shirt, an open bag of Fritos on his lap.

“Hey there,” he said cheerfully as she brushed past him into the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind her. I could hear her bracelets clanking as she moved around, putting things away, cabinet doors banging shut, one by one. Dave, with one Frito halfway to his mouth, raised his eyebrows.

“We saw her mom at the store,” I explained.

“Oh,” he said, popping it into his mouth. “How'd that go?”

“Shit!” Corinna said loudly, as something crashed and broke in the kitchen. “Goddammit.”

“Not so good,” I told him.

He sighed, standing up. “Here,” he said, handing off the Fritos to me. “I'm going in.”

I watched as he pushed the kitchen door open. It started to swing shut behind him before catching on the stubborn piece of kitchen tile that poked up at the edge of the threshold. He walked over to where Corinna was standing, crying, holding a piece of broken plate in her hand.

“This fell,” she said, holding it up as proof. “I didn't drop it.”

“I know,” he said, taking it out of her hand and putting it on the counter. “It's okay.”

She wiped at her eyes, impatiently. Then she said, “I hate that I let her do this to me. It's so dysfunctional.”

“It's not your fault,” Dave said as Corinna closed her eyes, leaning her face against his chest, and I felt bad for watching, turning my attention to the
Brady Bunch
rerun on the TV.

I wondered again if this was what Cass's life was like with Adam in New York. I hoped so. Even if she was struggling and living off Ramen-noodle soup, it seemed perfect to be in this kind of love.

Corinna was still crying, even as Dave kissed her forehead and smiled, taking one of her hands and twirling her around the small, paint-peeling kitchen. “Stop,” she said, half-laughing as he dipped her over the garbage can. “David, honestly.”