Mirror in the Sky (12 page)

FOURTEEN

I
T
was different after that. For the next three weeks, the stock market plummeted, rebounded, then plummeted again. This financial roller coaster would continue its course for the next year. People took to the streets, demanding that the government cut military spending and devote more resources toward scientific research. At school, teachers continued to tie discussions about Terra Nova into the curriculum. The student center buzzed with excitement over any news. People forwarded around all kinds of hoaxy e-mails.

Then there were smaller, subtler changes—the butterflywing kind that my mother talked about. The air seemed to fizz with glorious static—the electricity of the Possible. It was as though the Impossible had closed up shop, shuttered its storefront, and gone into hiding.

I never ate lunch in the library again. There was always
a seat for me at the best table in the student center. Veronica would seek me out during free period, and we'd drive in her Range Rover to the café on the corner of Hamilton Avenue to grab a latte or a kale-avocado smoothie. At the end of the day, we'd all look for each other in the student center before we separated for sports practice. Nick would give me a high five. Halle would walk with me to the athletic department. Alexa would buy a cookie from the concession cart before it closed for the day, breaking it in four pieces, giving one piece to me, another to Halle, another to Veronica. In physics, when we had to team up in threes for an egg-drop competition, Nick and Halle both called out for me at the same time.

“Hey, Tara, come here.”

“Come on, teammate, we're gonna win this thing.”

When I walked down the glass corridor, people I didn't even
know
—underclassmen, even teachers (who, let's be honest, are never immune to the sway of popularity)—said hi to me. They actually knew my name.

“Hey, Tara.”

“What's up, Tara?”

“Love that skirt, Tara!”

At lunch, we'd push two tables together in order to seat some sixteen of us, the girls in their wool skirts in hues of camel, fuchsia, and slate, their skinny leather belts and their cashmere scarves, talking about their vacations in San Miguel de Allende and Lisbon, the boys in their torn jeans and dingy caps and polo shirts making jokes at each other's expense.

When we broke into raucous laughter, every pair of eyes in
the room turned to look at us, wondering what we were laughing about, and I couldn't help but think,
I used to be out there, but now I'm in here
. And now I knew what the endless amusement was about. Most days were the same—Ariel Soloway and Janicza Fulton making raunchy jokes, Hunter and Veronica bickering as Jimmy fed the flame of their daily fracas, Veronica making outrageous statements. And Halle, of course. It was impossible to ignore her reign over all of it, as though much of this entertainment was for her benefit.

Everyone wanted to make Halle laugh. Everyone wanted her friendship, her respect. A word of disapproval from her might ruin the entire day. Ariel and Janicza made fun of everyone else, but never Halle. Even Hunter and Veronica's fights had a performance quality about them, and it was Halle who often played moderator, the Gwen Ifill of our group.

Out in the world, cults were forming on a daily basis—this I knew firsthand, and it was impossible to think of it without thinking about my mother, who had received her “induction packet” in the mail. I had seen it on the kitchen counter, a shiny catalogue that looked jarringly like the college information packets I was beginning to receive on a regular basis.

But at Brierly, the cult of Halle reigned supreme, and her greatest worshipper was Nick. Halle was at the center of Nick's orbit. Sometimes I thought of her as that big sun of Terra Nova's, so bright that it obscured everything else in its proximity. But Nick practically glowed in her presence.

One day in late September, we were sitting in the student center when Sarah Hoffstedt, now a consummate pariah, sheepishly walked up to me.

“Hey, Tara, can I talk to you?”

I barely saw her around anymore and was surprised at the fear in her eyes. I was chewing on a BLT, and a piece of lettuce lodged itself in my throat, making me cough.

“Why would she want to talk to you, Sarah?” Veronica responded on my behalf as Nick thumped my back.

“It's none of your damn business, Veronica.” Sarah glared at her, but I could see that the corners of her mouth were twitching nervously.

“Well, whatever you need to say, say it in front of all of us.” Veronica crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her chair. Something about her broad shoulders, her very angularity, made her seem physically powerful when she adopted this pose. Nick and Alexa exchanged glances. Halle continued eating her yogurt. She was giggling with Hunter about something. Jimmy whispered something to Janicza, making her laugh so hard she almost spit out her milk.

“What's up, Sarah?” Nick smiled that winning smile that always seemed to defuse any tension. He was often, I realized, mitigating any disharmony with his charm. It was the role he frequently played between Halle and Veronica when they were annoyed with one another, a near-daily occurrence.

Sarah glanced around the table, all of us looking back at her in anticipation. Janicza and Jimmy were still giggling.
Ariel didn't even meet Sarah's eyes. They had once been best friends.

“I didn't do it. You must have seen it, Tara. I saw the dog, and I swerved around it. I didn't hit it. I don't know who did, but it wasn't me.”

“Do you have any eyewitnesses?” Veronica retorted.

“I'm talking to Tara.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading. “Tara, please. You were there. Didn't you see? I didn't do it. I'm sorry, Halle, that your dog died”—she turned to Halle now—“but I didn't do it.”

I looked at Veronica, wondering what I should say. I had never really liked Sarah. She drove around in a red Porsche and laughed far too loudly. We had been on swim team together since the seventh grade, but she had never once spoken to me directly. In fact, a few times, I had seen her pointing at me and whispering and giggling with Ariel. But in this moment, she looked just as vulnerable as that dog she had hit.

“Nick saw it, Sarah. You can say whatever you want, but we have an eyewitness account.” Veronica turned to Nick.

Alexa's eyes met mine for a moment before she turned to look at Nick. She was chewing on her bottom lip.

“Yeah.” Nick nodded, looking right at Sarah.

“It's not true.”

“But it is. And you're not convincing any of us, okay? Time for you to leave now.” Veronica reached for the can of diet Coke before her, but before she could grab it, Sarah whacked it off the table, causing it to crash on the floor with a loud clatter,
fizzy liquid spilling at our feet. We all jumped at the violence of it. But Sarah had decided to make me a target, pointing a long finger in my face, her face contorted.

“You think you're one of them now, but you're not. They'll drop you just the way they dropped me,” she said. There was silence for a moment, and it was Halle who broke it, her voice stern.

“I didn't want to do this, Sarah, but you've really brought it on yourself. Why don't you tell Tara what you used to say about her in middle school before you continue to offer such persuasive counsel?”

Everyone was quiet, and my heart began to race. What
did
Sarah Hoffstedt say about me in middle school? I looked at Halle, wondering why she would put me in such an uncomfortable position, but her eyes were still on Sarah.

“That was a long time ago, Halle. Leave it alone.”

“Tell her.”

“No.”

“Halle, whatever, it was a long time ago. It's not important,” Nick said.

But Halle ignored Nick. “Own up, Sarah. You said some really upsetting things about one of my
friends
.” She placed an emphasis on that word, but something about this confrontation didn't make me feel like I was Halle's friend. It didn't feel like it had anything to do with me, actually. I felt like I was getting dragged into something messy and gross between Halle and Sarah.

Now it was Halle crossing her arms across her chest, the judge before whom Sarah would have to plead her case. But Sarah just stood there, a scowl on her face.

“Fine. Then I'll tell her.” Halle looked at me as the others sat silent and still around her. “She used to say that you're a hairy-legged ape.”

I could feel the heat rising to my face, while the rest of my body went cold. I was too horrified to make eye contact with anyone at the table, but they were all quiet, waiting for a reaction from me.

It was true—I had hairy legs. I was Indian, after all, and on the stupid swim team we weren't allowed to shave our legs till the day of a meet. For years, I hid in a corner of the locker room while changing, hoping that the blond-haired girls with an indistinguishable coat of down on their legs wouldn't notice, but of course they did. We all had to get in the pool together every day. The entire season, I wore long pants to school, even when it was ninety degrees outside. I had almost considered not trying out for swim team my freshman year just for this reason, but Coach Lyndskey had convinced me that they needed strong swimmers. I never told her the reason for my hesitation, but I suspected she knew. Clearly, everyone else did. Or if they hadn't before, they certainly did now.

I sat there, stunned, realizing that I wasn't like Halle or Veronica or Nick. I wasn't immune to humiliation. And it was Halle, of all people, who had put me in this position. She was supposed to be my friend. Why was she doing this?

I was different—that part hadn't changed. And at that very moment, I felt acutely as though I didn't belong. But then I remembered Nick's words.
Pretend
, he had said to me that night at Halle's party. Pretend you belong. Pretend there's nothing wrong with you. Pretend that it's not about you at all. After all, they were all still sitting at this table, with
me
, weren't they? And not with Sarah Hoffstedt. And so what if they did know? So fucking what?

I turned to Sarah. “I might be hairy, but you're a racist bitch, Sarah. No one cares about you. I can shave my legs, but there's nothing you can do about the fact that everyone can see right through you. They can see what a terrible person you are.” I saw the tears in Sarah's eyes, but I kept going. “What does it feel like to have no friends? To have nobody care about you? It must be really, really sad.” I frowned, pushing out my lower lip. I heard Ariel snicker, and Sarah turned to look at her, the tears streaming down her face now. She opened her mouth to say something, but then decided against it. Slowly, she turned and skulked away.

The silence around us was deafening. No one moved or spoke, and then Janicza and Ariel began to whistle and clap, and then the entire table joined them, hooting and laughing.

“And don't you dare say anything about one of my friends ever again!” Veronica yelled after her.

I didn't laugh. Underneath the table, my hands were shaking, and only Alexa saw. She reached for one of them and looked at me. We exchanged glances, her eyes asking me, “
Where the
hell did that come from?
” I didn't have an answer. It was a side of myself I hadn't seen before. I had never in my life been so cruel to anyone.

I turned to look at Halle, who was smiling at me, a look of contentment in her eyes. She nodded at me. Was it a nod of approval? Had I passed whatever test she had subjected me to? I didn't know, but I couldn't help but wonder if she had enjoyed this—putting me in an awkward situation, watching me extricate myself. Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe they
would
drop me one day, just the way they had dropped her. I wasn't one of them. I had let my guard down for a moment, gotten comfortable, allowed myself to believe that everything was different now.

FIFTEEN

I was reaching for my calculus textbook when I saw the note in my bag. I quickly pulled it into my lap and unfolded it. The handwriting was my mother's.

“I know we haven't been getting along lately,” it said. “I miss you and want to talk to you more about this. I've booked my ticket for late October. I want to really enjoy the next few weeks together, if that's possible. Just know that wherever I am, whatever I decide to do, I still love you, okay?” She signed it “Mom” with hearts around the name. My heart sank. I crumpled the note and tossed it back into my bag. It had been a whole month since my mother announced she was leaving, and I was still hoping that it would all go away, that I would come home one day and she would tell me she had changed her mind and we'd laugh about what a silly idea the whole thing was to begin with.

I had been spending most of my time outside the house,
heading to Veronica's after swim practice so we could do our homework together. The Hartwickes lived walking distance from our house, but on a much nicer street, a block away from the Riverside Yacht Club. Their home was an old Victorian with a wraparound porch and fireplaces in practically every room. Most nights, I ate dinner with her family. Mr. and Mrs. Hartwicke liked me, and Veronica's little brother, Tim, always insisted on sitting next to me at the dining table. “He's got a little bit of a crush on you,” Mrs. Hartwicke told me.

That night, I arrived home late after dinner at the Hartwickes' and quietly slipped in through the back door, hoping I wouldn't run into anyone. I could hear my parents in the kitchen, arguing again. I stopped in the hallway to listen.

“What about Tara?” my father was pleading. “What do you think this is going to do to her? She's sixteen years old. This is going to have an impact on her for the rest of her life. It'll change her, don't you understand that, Jennifer?”

“Tara's a big girl. She can handle it. It's just a few months, Sudeep! I was on my own my whole life.”

“And look what it's done to you!”

“I'm trying to
fix
what's wrong with me, Sudeep. I'm trying to
heal
.”

“By joining a cult?”

“It's
not
a cult!”

“It's for six months, Jennifer! That's practically the entire school year. You're missing out on one of the most important years of her life! Forget about me, think of your daughter!”

“I need to think about
me
, Sudeep. There's no way I can be a good mother to her if I don't take care of myself.”

“All you've ever done is think about you! You're not a good mother to begin with!” my father yelled.

“Maybe you can give up your dreams, but I can't! I want to show Tara that she can do whatever she wants! That she can have the life she chooses, and that she doesn't have to settle.”

“So all of this, this has been settling for you? The past seventeen and a half years, it's all settling?”

“We're not happy, Sudeep! Can't you see it? None of us are happy.”

“But we were once. Don't you remember?” my father asked. I could hear the hurt in his voice.

“That was a long time ago,” my mother said softly.

I walked to my room and locked the door, my heart racing. Was it true that none of us were happy? I had never heard my mother actually articulate this point before, and it scared me. Saying it made it real.
We are an unhappy family
.

Just that week, we had started reading
Anna Karenina
in AP English, and I thought about the opening line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” What kind of unhappy family were we? Could we ever be happy again?

I made a decision. Not something that would solve our problems or make us happy. That part I wasn't capable of. But blame was something I could do.

Alone, in the dark of my room, my outrage grew, in the
way that dark and lonely spaces incubate all intense feelings. But I didn't realize that night just how lonely I was, even as I put on my earphones and blasted the Pixies, looking out my window to see if I could identify that one particular star—the sun of another Earth far, far away. I wondered what that other me was doing right at this moment. I wished I could speak to her, wished I could tell her everything. She was the only one out there who would understand any of this. The only person in the entire universe who could understand me.

That was the night I decided to stop speaking to my mother.