My Invented Life (2 page)

A
National Enquirer
headline flashes before my eyes. L
ITTLE
S
ISTER
T
URNS INTO A
G
IANT
Z
IT ON
B
IG
S
ISTER’S
F
OREHEAD
. P
ICTURES
I
NSIDE
. She glares at the scarf. I remove it from my neck and set it on the bed. At least she noticed me.

“What do you want?” she asks.

Bryan
. A rare bout of self-restraint shuts me up. My big mouth and my conniving side make a sorry twosome.

“I traveled far from a distant land to wait upon your gentle personage,” I say.

She sits on the edge of the bed. “What do you want to talk about, Chub?” The parents mistake her nickname for me as cute, not seeing the jab at my weight. I did plump out in fifth grade before shooting up in seventh, but I lost most of those pounds.

I roll onto my stomach to cover the lingering flab. “Anything. How’s cheerleading?”

“Great.”

A conversation cannot happen through a glass wall. She sees me fine but can’t hear what I’m saying. Maybe louder will work. “Isn’t there something in the whole freaking universe we can talk about?” I shout.

“Cheerleading sucks, actually.”

This unexpected opening knocks me off balance. My silver tongue and I soon recover. “Did something happen?” I ask.

“It’s gotten so competitive.”

“You
like
competition.” My elbow grazes a hard lump
under her down comforter. Is she hiding something in her bed?

“No I don’t. I like to do things well.”

“Like thieving boys, you mean.”

She loads an angsty CD into her stereo and lowers herself into a plié using her ballet barre next to the supersized mirror. “You mean Bryan?” she says after a few dips. “From whom did I thieve him?”

Like she doesn’t know. “Nobody.”

I run my fingers along the edge of the mysterious object under the blanket. A book. Before I can read the title, Eva pounces. She’s the mountain lion to my jogger, pinning me and wrenching the book out of my hands. The back cover rips off in the struggle. I manage to stand up and hold it out of her reach. She gives up and goes back to the barre.

Expecting smut, I read the blurb aloud for maximum embarrassment factor. “‘A beautiful coming-of-age story about a girl who falls in love with another girl and their journey of self discovery.’ . . . Oooh, does Bryan know about your side interests?”

Her face flushes red. “As if a cheerleading babe could be a dyke,” she says.

“I didn’t call you a dyke.”

The old Eva would’ve made a joke of it.
Now you know. Just between you and me and the tabloids, Britney Spears and I are lovers
.

“Andie lent me the book. The stage tech with the eyeliner.”

“So she’s your secret girlfriend,” I say.

“Don’t be bitchy. Oh, I forgot. You can’t help it.”

Overreactionville. Silly repartee has always been our trademark. The oh-so-thin filter between my brain and mouth fails once again. “You’re the one who’s going off. Maybe you really are gay.”

She comes over to where I’m sitting on the edge of her bed. “You guessed my secret. I wanted to tell you sooner,” she says, taking both of my hands in hers, “but I was afraid. Do you still love me?”

“More than ever,” I say. We embrace. “It’s cool having a lesbian in the family.” The word
lesbian
rolls out of my mouth like I use it every day.

Another tender moment in the invented life of Roz Peterson
.

When I say to Eva, “Maybe you really are gay,” she casts me a scornful glance.

“Reading a book about lesbians doesn’t make you a lesbian,” she says.

My foot taps the floor. When I force it to stop, the other foot takes over the job. “I know that,” I say. “So why did Eyeliner Andie think you’d be interested?”

She pitches her voice low and sweet. “How would I know, Chub?”

I’m not one to give up, especially when common sense dictates I should. “Maybe she has a crush on you.”

“Go away and bother your imaginary friends.”

“What about Carmen?” I ask. Carmen is Eva’s best friend and cheerleading partner. “She’s cute.”

“Though parting be such sweet sorrow . . . get out!”

In elementary school Eva used to beg for my company while she practiced ballet. Of course I was sweeter and more pliable back then. When I was nine, I read aloud five volumes of
Little House on the Prairie
while she lengthened
her arabesque. At the time, I thought she was doing
me
the favor. On my way out, I turn off Alanis and her whinefest about her self-absorbed life.

“That’s mature,” Eva says.

I roll my eyes and take Andie’s book with me.

Back in my room, I can’t sit still. I pick up the glass butterfly that Eva gave me as a thank-you gift years ago. She couldn’t stand being the center of attention and proposed running away from home to avoid performing the solo assigned to her in our grade school play—
Pirouette for a Lacewing
. I came up with a better plan. After her grand entrance, I tumbled onstage behind her, somersaulting wildly to distract the crowd.

Maybe Eva really does like girls. That hardly seems like a reason to cut me out of her life, though. And the details don’t support my theory. For one thing—if she has the hots for girls, why the long parade of boyfriends? She’s run through six in the last two years. And for another—the make-out sessions with Bryan look all too real. The butterfly slips from my hand onto the floor. With a little help from Mr. Superglue, it becomes Frankenfly, a blobby and misaligned creation not unlike my life. I throw the whole thing in the trash.

E
yeliner Andie’s lesbian book
is set on the East Coast, where two girls fall crazy in love amidst the geeky world of chess camp. I read the first chapter under the covers with a flashlight like a voyeur. A few pages into it, I emerge from hiding. It’s like every other romance novel I’ve read where a girl falls for a boy and obstacles keep them from getting together—outdated parental rules, misunderstandings, and irritating friends. In this case, outdated hang-ups, prejudices, and irritating friends. Like Eva said, you don’t have to be a lesbian to read a lesbian book.

Still, her reaction to the subject has aroused my curiosity. I decide to put her to the test after dinner. The parents conveniently go out for a health-inducing walk through the evening fog, leaving us girls behind to clean up. When they’re safely gone, I don my friendliest face. Shakespeare said, “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” Translation? A devious mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I ambush her in the kitchen. “What did you think about that sizzling love scene in Andie’s book?” I ask. “The one in the pool house.”

Graceful Eva drops a waterglass in the sink. It shatters.

“I only read the first chapter,” she says.

Here’s what she should’ve said:
Juicy. Who would you cast in the movie version? Ashley or Mary-Kate?

“Let me read it to you while you load the dishwasher,” I say, as if nothing strange just happened.

“Nice try. Get me to do all the work.”

Her voice comes out as thin as the watery juice Mom served me during my pudgy phase. My suspicion radar registers a second blip. I pretend I didn’t hear her, run to my room, and return with the book.

“Dang. I can’t find the pool house scene. Good read, though. It’s hip and edgy just like it says on the back cover. You’re missing out.”

Eva doesn’t answer. She stretches slowly like my cat, Marshmallow, when I brush her off the kitchen counter—a stretch that says she meant to be on the floor all along.

“I’m tired,” Eva says. “Tell the parents good night for me.”

After her exit, I resist the urge to break a few more glasses. The counter needs a thorough wiping. I pretend not to notice. Life PD (Post Deletion) would be easier if my best friend, Sierra, were here. She moved to a tiny village in Guatemala five months ago with her anthropologist parents and lives out of email range except for rare visits to town. No new best friend has stepped forward to fill her cute Uggs. So I hang out with the theater-geek crowd, a loose confederation of friends and enemies. Friendship Lite.

Back in my room, I go online to join the nightly e-chat. Eva is not on.

DulceD (Carmen): tryouts monday . . . any1 red the play

She means our spring play,
As You Like It
by William Shakespeare.

SkateGod (Bryan): i don’t believe in monday

DulceD: LOL

D-Dark-O (Nico, a theater geek of minor talent): i don’t believe in red

Isis (me): i don’t believe in shakespeare . . . the horror, the horror

Sierra picked my chat name. She said that goddesses are tall too.

DulceD: the horror, the horror is from joseph conrad

She fancies herself head and shoulders smarter than the rest of us, a tower of intellect just because she’s taking a few AP classes.

Isis: joseph who? the hell cares

I meant to suck up to her so she would share all Eva’s secrets with me. Too late.

DulceD:

SkateGod: i’m trying out 4 orlando

DulceD: rosalind is perfect 4 u roz-alind . . .

Roz is short for Rosella, actually. What were Mom and Dad thinking when I was born? To be fair we should be
allowed to rechristen our parents when we turn sixteen. I choose Gethsemane for Mom and Elmo for Dad.

DulceD: go for it!

Isis: ?????? isn’t rosalind the lead . . . ?

Most days Carmen would kill—or worse—for the lead, so she’s being sarcastic. Or is she? A theory pops into my mind—Theory X. Playing Rosalind won’t be good for Carmen’s new sexy image. Last year she dressed like a nun, but this year she does all her clothes shopping at Sluts-R-Us. And in the play Rosalind pretends to be a man in almost every scene. Carmen wants a role of the tight-bodice variety so that her boobs can look like pears on a platter offered up to the audience.

When I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror on my door, a darker theory suggests itself—Theory Y. Though I’m not exactly fat, the less tactful sort of person uses the word
solid
when referring to me. My waist is a straight line, to be honest. Carmen thinks that I can play a woman pretending to be a man more convincingly than she can.

So what? My lovely curves are more hidden than hers. Shedding a few pounds shouldn’t be difficult on the right diet. I’ve been thinking of going vegetarian, anyway, since reading a gory article on slaughterhouses. Bryan IMs me outside the chat.

Him: i need 2 talk 2u

Omigod. He loves me after all. I don’t want to appear as eager as I feel, so I leave him hanging.

Isis: carmen . . . dennis is perfect 4u . . . go for it

Dennis has two lines in the play.

DulceD: don’t b bitchy

DulceD: o, i forgot . . . u can’t help it

Poor girl can’t invent an original insult to save her life. I’ll show her how it’s done. Of course the Elizabethan curses from the generator I downloaded aren’t exactly original either, but no one has to know.

Isis: don’t be a hedge-born clack-dish . . . o, I forgot . . . u can’t help it

Hedge-born clack-dish
means lowly blabbermouth. I can almost see Carmen sweating as she frantically checks Dictionary.com to figure out what I just called her. Before she can fire back another volley, I leave the chat. Our argument is pointless anyway. Eva always gets the lead. And it’s about time to answer Bryan’s private message to me.

Me: what about eva?

Him: what about her? call me.

After several heart-pounding, sweaty-palm minutes, I call his cell. No answer. My curiosity grows like a mosquito bite begging to be scratched. Does his message have anything to do with Eva liking girls?

Though I’m SO NOT New Age, Sierra introduced me to Ouija for answering life’s more pressing questions. I draw the curtains, light a candle, and sit cross-legged in front of the computer. The Ouija Web page cues me to begin.

“Is Eva a lesbian?” I chant, typing as I go.

Under the gentle pressure of my fingertips, the mouse stays put. I picture Eva with her arms around Angelina Jolie. The mouse drifts upward. I open my eyes. The cursor hovers between yes and no. I shut my eyes. My mental picture changes to Bryan in a yellow tank top with me leaning against his perfect pecs. The mouse jumps to yes.

There’s my answer.

My bed doubles as a trampoline, which is a good thing because my screechy nerves need some jump therapy right now. On the third bounce, my hair brushes the ceiling and a crunching noise starts up inside my mattress. I drop down onto my back and kick up my legs for a while. Eva is as familiar to me as the lines of overlapping plaster over my bed—BD that is—so it bothers me that I don’t understand her. We used to be a team. Well, almost.

One little imperfection got in the way of our perfection; it turns out that Eva is better than me at everything. I solved that by dropping out of choir, ballet, and tap. True, I could’ve taken up obscure activities—bassoon recitals or spelling bees—but why bother? Theater changed all that. I fell in love with the stage at first sight. Eva’s superior acting skills failed to diminish my passion for it. She could have Gretel as long as I could be the evil stepmother.