If I Was Your Girl (5 page)

“I want you to play the honesty game with me.” The sky flashed outside and thunder rolled across the sky. I looked up and saw white and gray clouds hurrying past the sun as a shadowy line rushed across the clearing. Storms always followed a heat wave. The hotter it burned and the longer it lasted, the worse the storm would eventually rage. “Probably foreshadowing. The honesty game is intense.” She walked into the other room and returned with a stool, gesturing for me to take the camping chair.

“What is it?” I said, already certain I didn't want to play. Outside, rain began to fall in a slate-gray sheet.

“It's Truth or Dare without the dirty shit, pretty much. How it works is we take turns telling the other person something about us they probably don't know. You do it five times, starting with something dumb, then you escalate and, by the end, you share something you never thought you would tell anyone. The challenger—me—goes first. No matter what you say to me, you'll know I can't blab because you've got all my dirt.”

“I don't think I want to.” I fidgeted in the chair, biting my lip. I imagined all the things I couldn't tell her. Could never tell anyone.

“You don't have to,” she said. She blew her hair back into place and reached for her pipe and a shimmering plastic baggy. She carefully stuffed dried green leaves into the bowl.

“Could I get high first?” I said, my hands balled in my lap.

She tilted her head. “I already think you're cool, you know. You don't need to smoke to impress me.”

“No,” I said. I imagined my insides taut like piano wire, humming as they prepared to snap. “I just want to … I want to relax. I haven't really relaxed since … well, since ever.”

She nodded, once, and put the pipe and the lighter on the table between us.

“It doesn't always make you relax,” she said. “For the record I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not your mom, though.”

Two more thunderous peals growled at us before I worked up the courage to touch the wavy-lined blue-and-green pipe. Its glassy surface felt like the unicorn tchotchkes in Mom's bedroom. I almost laughed at the association as I picked it up and held it. The mouthpiece tasted warm and wet as Bee instructed me on how to do it.

“Don't cough yet,” she said as smoke flooded my lungs.

I held my lips shut. My chest heaved and my eyes watered. Finally the sizzle in my chest hurt too much and I let the coughs come. A blinding halo surrounded my head as I bent double, coughing long after my lungs were empty.

“I think I did something wrong,” I said. “Nothing's happening.”

“Everybody says that,” Bee said. “Give it a sec.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, a tingling feeling beginning to spread through my body. I felt brave and free in a dizzy, nauseated way.

“So I guess it's up to me to start.” Bee lit another cigarette and thought for a moment. “I competed in beauty pageants until five years ago.”

A laugh sprung from my insides, buzzing through my lips before finally breaking free.

“If you weren't high I'd take offense.”

“I'm not high,” I said. My voice sounded slow and warped, like it came through a pink toy-store bullhorn, which made me laugh even harder.

“You're high,” she said. She waited for me to calm down and then handed me her phone. I took it, just barely getting my breathing under control. On the screen was a photo of a girl with long, bleached hair curled in perfect ringlets, wearing a silver sequined gown.

“I think you're a lot prettier now,” I said. I meant it. A warm wave ran from my toes up to my head.

“Our peers disagree,” she said. “Whatever. I could be her again if I wanted to be. They're jackasses forever. Your turn.”

“My ears aren't pierced.” I remembered asking my parents when I was little, and how embarrassed and confused I'd felt when Dad responded angrily. My emotional life had already begun to collapse at that point, but something about that particular dressing-down knocked loose the floodgates, and months of bottled up loneliness, fear, and shame poured out. I remembered lying on my bed after Dad was done yelling at me, listening to the cardinals outside, and wondering if that was the last time I would ever cry, if God had decided I only got a set amount of tears in my whole life.

“Seriously? That's all you've got?”

“You said to start small!” I protested. “Okay fine. How's this instead? I've never been drunk.”

“Well, you're high as shit right now, so I'd say you're well on your way. My turn: I've gotten to at least third base in every bathroom at school.”

“With who?” I said, loud enough to startle myself. I started giggling again, but did a better job keeping it in check. “With whom, I mean. Whom.” I liked the way “whom” felt in my mouth.

“Your turn,” Bee said, shaking her head.

“Ohh-kay,” I conceded, dragging the word out like a disappointed child. A bubble hovered at my mind's edge, waiting to pop. I existed in the moment, free from the past and the future. “I switched schools because someone beat me up. You can still feel the stitches above my ear.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette, lighting the tip bright red, and held it for a while. “A year ago I spent a month at Valley down in Chattanooga.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“Loony bin,” she said, tapping her cigarette on the table's edge. Ash floated to the ground.

“I tried to kill myself my sophomore year,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “How?”

“It was a few weeks after my mom broke her leg. Her prescription painkillers were sitting out. I took too many.”

“How many's too many?”

“Whole bottle,” I said, chewing my fingernails.

“Why, though?”

I just shook my head.

“I'm glad you didn't,” Bee said. “Kill yourself, I mean.” She met my eyes as she put her cigarette out on the table. “I'm bisexual.”

“Really?” I said slowly, trying to fit this fact in with everything I knew about Bee. I wondered if any part of me had suspected. “Have you ever dated a girl?”

“Remember when you saw me and Chloe at the game?”

“Wow,” I said, my eyebrows shooting up. I wondered if anyone else knew about Chloe. I doubted it; she was a little masculine, of course, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, and it didn't seem like anyone was out and proud at Lambertville High. “I thought maybe you were smoking.”

“Nah,” she said. “Chloe's a huge jock, so she refuses to corrupt her body or whatever.”

I nodded, processing what she had told me. I had been so caught up with my own secret, I realized, it hadn't occurred to me that my new friends were keeping secrets of their own.

We sat silently for a few moments, listening to the rain pound the roof. It reminded me of the time Dad took me hunting with some buddies from work and a freak storm kept us trapped in our cabin all weekend. I tried to make oatmeal cookies like in Mom's recipe book from the ingredients on hand, but all it seemed to do was make Dad uncomfortable. He never took me hunting again.

Bee's voice cut through the quiet. “Your turn. It's your fourth, so better make it a good one.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “Just give me a minute, okay?” She shrugged.

I thought again of that weekend, and how I threw the cookies away even though there was nothing wrong with them. I thought of how I'd stopped doing so many of the things I'd enjoyed so Dad wouldn't be mad. I thought of going the rest of my life pretending I sprang to life from nothing at sixteen years old and felt my cheeks flush with shame and anger. I was so tired of cowering. I was so tired of hiding. I
wanted
to tell the truth, to say it out loud.

But when I went to speak, nothing came out.

“I'm sorry,” I said finally. My eyes felt dry. “I know what I need to say, but I just … can't.”

She waited a moment. Lightning flashed outside the house. I expected her to prod me, or maybe try to guess. But she just leaned back and said, “The rain doesn't look like it's gonna let up anytime soon. Get your sketchbook.”

I set the pad on my lap. “What should I draw?”

“Whatever you want.”

I put a pencil to paper and licked my lips. Within a few seconds the outline of a sad-eyed little boy appeared. Minutes passed as I sketched, the only sound the pattering of the rain on the roof.

“It's okay, you know,” Bee said quietly, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Whatever it is you can't tell me.” She met my eyes. “It's gonna be okay.”

 

DECEMBER, THREE YEARS AGO

I was an hour early for the support group. The door was locked and the lights were off, so I crouched on the stoop. I played Final Fantasy on my handheld while I waited. My fingers were numb but my character in the game was named Amanda and she was beautiful and powerful, and watching her kill monsters helped calm me down. The only time I got to feel like myself was when I played pretend.

It was the first week of December, and every house but this one was draped in twinkling white lights like snow and ice. I had only seen snow twice before we moved, and it never snowed in Georgia. It was very cold, though, which was nice. When it was cold outside I could wear thick boots, thick jeans, sweaters, scarves, and hats. I could cocoon myself so that the only visible parts of me were my nose and my eyes and a few strands of brown hair. Nobody could tell if I was a boy or a girl.

“Well, hello,” a voice called from the yard. I paused my game and looked up. A girl a few years older than me in black leather boots strode down the garden path toward the porch, waving. She was tall and long-legged, with a cloud of natural hair bouncing with every step. I put my handheld away and stood, tucking my hands under my armpits. “Are you new? I can't really tell.”

“I am,” I said. Even my voice was sexless when filtered through my wool scarf. “New, I mean. I haven't been here before.”

“Good!” she said, beaming. She unlocked the front door and motioned me in. The front room was uncomfortably warm, but I didn't want to leave my cocoon yet. “I'm Virginia, by the way. Coffee?”

“You don't have to make me anything,” I said. “I'll just get water.”

She brought me to a kitchen that looked like something out of the 1940s, all white and blue tile and high windows. I sat and sweltered while she ground coffee beans.

“Listen,” she said, “by all means wear whatever makes you comfortable, but it's hot as Santa's butt crack in here and I just know you're cooking in there. I promise, whatever you're hiding, in this place, what we see is what you know you are inside.”

I stood blankly for a second and then took off my hat. My hair was damp and stringy with sweat. I unwrapped my scarf, the scratchy wool pulling at my skin like a Band-Aid.

Virginia smiled. “See? You're gorgeous.”

She sat beside me and took my hands in hers. The size of her hands was the only thing that might have given her away, but next to my bony, pale fingers hers were beautiful and dark and alive. “Listen, a lot of the people you're going to see tonight are pretty … rough. Don't let them scare you off, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“But don't treat them like freaks either,” she said. “Just open your eyes and see them the way they really are. They're all beautiful, okay?” I nodded. She squeezed my hand.

I heard the door open and close, and voices drifted in from the front room. A short, round man with smooth, beardless cheeks and spiky blond hair swaggered in. Virginia introduced him as Boone and he waved with a grunt. He was followed by a girl with long, straight, shiny black hair and a ratty, patched overcoat that went past her knees. Virginia introduced her as Moira, but if she heard, she didn't say anything. The girl looked at her feet while she walked, and I wanted to tell her I understood, but part of understanding was knowing that telling her that would only make her nervous.

“Where's Wanda?” Virginia asked. She sat forward in her chair, elbows tucked in and hands cradling her mug.

“Couldn't get a sitter,” the man said. His voice was high and raspy. “Who's the kid?”

“What is your name, actually?” Virginia said, arching an eyebrow.

“Andrew,” I said. My rib cage started to collapse. My heart thumped in my ears.

“Is that your real name?”

A woman with broad shoulders and a faint shadow of a beard under her makeup entered next. She looked strong and stout, but the longer I looked the more I saw the beauty in her—here a light step, here a brief touch of the hair, here a wide, open smile. Boone said, “Evening, Rhonda,” to greet her.

“Amanda,” I said then. “It's … I mean it's not my name, but I always wanted it to be. So, Amanda, I guess.”

“Would you like it if we called you that?” Moira asked. Her dark-ringed eyes bore down on me, but the corners of her mouth turned up in a faint smile.

“I'm not sure,” I said. My chest felt tight but warm and my breathing was shallow. “I think I want that.”

“Well, then, I would like to introduce my friend Amanda to everyone,” Virginia said, squeezing my hand and smiling. My eyes burned suddenly, and when I rubbed my cheek, my hand came away wet. I tried to remember the last time I had been able to cry.

 

6

Anna insisted on giving me a ride to the party Saturday night. Dad and I had been avoiding each other for most of the week, but he actually looked like he might smile when she picked me up in front of the apartment complex in her family's green minivan. Maybe the religious bumper stickers stuck all over the van's backside like wallpaper reassured him I was making friends with the right people.

We pulled up to the house as the setting sun limned the western mountains in red and purple. The house was white and ranch-style and looked like it could be on the cover of
Southern Living
. A garden overflowed with flowers in full bloom. I knew all of their names: Indian pinks, white rain lilies, Stokes aster, false indigo. Mom had taught me them years before, until Dad found me gardening, and they fought.