Fans of the Impossible Life (8 page)

“He's a chaperone for the dance,” Talia said in a tone that suggested that Mira was a complete idiot.

“No,” Mira said, now pulling on Sebby's arm with the silent plea to stop laughing. “I haven't seen him. Why? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Talia said. “Everything's fine.” After an uncomfortable pause she added, “Bye,” and walked off toward the back door of the gym.

Sebby doubled over in laughter.

“Oh my god. Talia!” He jokingly reached out to her. “Come back!”

“Do not tempt her.”

“I thought we were friends.”

“That girl doesn't have friends. She has humans that she must tolerate because her ship crash-landed on this planet and she has no way to get home.”

“Talia, phone home.”

“Exactly.”

They had made their way onto the dance floor. Sebby faced Mira, took her hand, put his other hand on her waist.

“Best. Dance. Ever,” he said.

“As usual, your standards are way too low,” she said.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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I walked into the gym behind a group of squealing freshman girls and immediately regretted not making more of an effort to look like everyone else. Why didn't I buy some new jeans and a fake faded band T-shirt at the mall? The irony of getting to be out of uniform of course was that everyone still looked exactly the same as everyone else.

I spotted Mira and Sebby as soon as I walked in. They were impossible to miss, Mira in a magenta dress that twirled around her as she danced, Sebby in his fraying thrift-store khakis. They were doing some kind of tango in the middle of the gym, oblivious to everyone around them.

I stood on the side of the room watching them, realizing that I had no game plan for this evening. My normal “stand in the corner, call Dad after an hour” strategy was not going to work if I wanted to actually participate in some way. But standing in the middle of the room staring at people wasn't an option either. I looked around desperately for a place to go and settled
on the refreshment table. I could just drink punch all night.

Rose was sitting behind the table piling cookies into a tower.

“Hey, Jeremy,” she said.

“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”

She placed a final cookie on top.

“Leaning tower of cookies,” she said. She attempted to make the tower lean. It fell over pathetically. “I'm just working off some detentions. Mrs. Pierce is such a hard-ass about getting to class on time and she has the last classroom on the second floor, so I'm always late.” She picked up a broken cookie and held it out to me. “Want one? They're free.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I'm surprised to see you here,” she said. “You're not usually much of a dance guy.”

“Yeah. Not really.”

“You're not much of an anything guy these days. Except Art Club. I guess you're Art Club guy now, huh?”

“I guess.”

“I'm into it. We've got the Art Club bond now, Jeremy.”

She held out a fist. I started at it.

“Bump it, Jeremy. Fist bump.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I shoved the rest of the cookie in my mouth and bumped my first against hers. Rose laughed.

Suddenly I felt hands on my shoulder and then Mira and Sebby were on either side of me.

“Cookies!” Sebby said. “Rose, you have cookies.”

Rose picked up the broken pieces of her tower and let them fall through her hands.

“I am rich with cookies,” Rose said.

Sebby jumped up to sit on the table next to the cookie plate. Mira sat next to Rose.

“Hi, Jeremy,” Sebby said.

“Hey. Hi,” I said.

“Why are you sitting here?” Mira asked Rose.

“I love cookies. I can't be away from them,” Rose said. She shoved three in her mouth and then spat them out at Sebby.

“Ew, woman! This means war.”

“No, okay, we are not starting a food fight at homecoming,” Mira said. “That would just be too iconic or something. Come on.” She got up and took Sebby's hand. “‘Tainted Love' is happening. We can't let eighties classics pass us by.”

“Very well.” Sebby let her pull him up and he grabbed my hand, dragging me behind them.

“Have fun, Jeremy,” Rose called after us.

Mira and Sebby were debating which of their elaborate dance combinations to show me. Inspired by Rose's job for the evening, they decided on Baking the Cookies, which involved pretending to be stirring a bowl of batter to the beat, then pretending to plop balls of batter down on a baking sheet, putting the baking sheet in the oven, indicating time passing by tapping on your invisible watch, taking the tray out of the oven, and eating one of the cookies.

I did the best I could, trying to copy their moves, although
Sebby's favorite thing to do was spin both of us at the same time, and I was starting to feel dizzy. I had lost track of how I had gotten here. I arrived at the gym. I ate a cookie. What about before that? And now? The three of us laughing and spinning as if this was the way that it was supposed to be. As if anything about this was normal.

The song changed and Sebby started doing dramatic moves of framing his face and dipping himself to the floor.

“When Sebby starts vogueing I need to take a break,” Mira said in my ear. “I'm gonna go get some fresh air.”

She said something to Sebby and he nodded, and she left us there alone together. Sebby smiled at me and grabbed me around the waist. He took my hand.

“Do you know ballroom?” he said.

I was suddenly very aware of the presence of other people around us, remembered my own fear about the unstructured nature of this night.

I felt myself pull away slightly.

He grabbed me tighter, pulled me toward him so our torsos were touching. We were almost the same height, his hair dusty blond to my very brown, his defined edges in places where my face had stayed insistently round, but somehow looking into his eyes felt like a mirror. As if that was the reflection of myself that I wanted.

“You won't dance with me?” he said, smiling.

My hands were sweating. I didn't know what to say. I had arrived at the gym . . . I had eaten a cookie . . .

He leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“No one cares,” he said. “And if they do, then fuck 'em.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, tried to smile, and then he dipped me to the floor and I fell backward and I was laughing too hard to care anymore. Fuck 'em. Yes, that was right. That was it exactly.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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Mira made her way out the back door of the gym. She looked back to see Sebby with his arm around Jeremy, dipping him to the floor.

“Be gentle with shy boy,” she had whispered in Sebby's ear. He wasn't listening to her, of course.

Outside in the parking lot the night seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn. Molly Stern was leaning against a Jeep, loudly throwing up any food she had eaten that day, or possibly anytime that week. Rose was standing next to her, nobly taking on the job of holding Molly's hair back for her, while Sarah and Anna looked on disapprovingly from a distance. And in the middle of it all was chaperone Peter Sprenger. Mira almost turned back around and went inside, but her curiosity got the better of her when Talia pushed past her clutching a cup of water, nearly spilling it in her eagerness to bring it to Peter.

“Molly, why don't you drink some water, okay?” Peter said.

Molly, temporarily done vomiting, lifted her head and tried to stand up straight.

“She just came over to the cookie table and barfed on my shoes,” Rose said. “I got her outside as fast as I could, but I think she left a trail.”

“I thought I should have . . . something to eat,” Molly said between choking sobs.

Talia attempted to assist her with sipping from the cup of water.

“She can hold the cup herself, Talia,” Rose said. “I'm pretty sure her arms still work.”

Talia glared at Rose as Molly sipped the water and tried to stop crying.

Peter looked over at Sarah and Anna. “May I speak to you girls?” he said.

Sarah hesitated, and for a moment it seemed like she might actually say no, but then she gave in and Anna followed her over.

“Were you with Molly before the dance?” Peter asked.

Sarah shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Or yes?”

Sarah and Anna looked at each other.

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“And what exactly were you doing?”

“Nothing,” Sarah said, making a drunken effort to strand up straighter, readying for a fight.

Peter let a tense pause go by before saying, “All right. There
are two ways that we can do this. The first is that you tell me exactly what Molly has been drinking or consuming in any other ways, and we see that she is able to get the proper help. The second is that I assume you're all high and drank a full bottle of vodka each and I call your parents and tell them my suspicions.”

Sarah glared at him, hating to lose a power play, even with a teacher.

“Just wine coolers,” she mumbled. “She had, like, five or something. She probably didn't eat anything today and that's why she got sick.”

“Looks like she ate something,” Rose said.

Molly attempted to say something in her defense, but the effort just got her started again, and Rose grabbed at her hair to keep it out of the way.

Sarah scowled in disgust.

“Can we go now?”

“You girls have a ride home?” Peter asked.

“My mom's coming to get us later,” Anna said.

“I suggest that you call her now.”

Anna nodded, more easily intimidated than her friend.

“You have a phone?” Peter asked.

“Yes.”

“Then take it out and call your mother to come get you. Now.”

Sarah stood with her arms folded as Anna did what she was told. Molly had stopped throwing up again but was crying now,
trying to say something through her tears about having a sensitive stomach.

“Rose and Talia, why don't you take Molly into the bathroom and help her get cleaned up.”

“I'm supposed to be at the refreshment table,” Rose said. “There's probably chaos breaking out over the cookies.”

“Talia then,” Peter said. “You can help her?”

“Of course,” Talia said, leading a crying Molly to the gym door. Peter followed behind. Rose and Mira watched them go.

“Bitch barfed on my shoes,” Rose said to Mira. “She can clean herself up.”

“Poor Molly,” Mira said.

“How about poor me?” Rose said. “The one day I get to wear my shit kickers at school and they get barfed on.”

Mira looked down at Rose's impressive combat boots.

“Probably makes them more authentic,” Mira said.

“Yeah, right,” Rose said. “I better get back in there. You coming?”

Mira looked around the parking lot, streetlamps illuminating patches of concrete in the dark. Clusters of older kids were sneaking cigarettes behind cars.

“I'm just going to chill out here for a little bit.”

“Letting the boys dance?” Rose said, looking back at the open double doors. Sebby and Jeremy were still in the middle of the dance floor, now doing an improvised version of the electric slide.

“Yeah, something like that,” Mira said.

“Generous of you to share him,” Rose said.

“He's his own person.”

“Still,” Rose said.

Mira shrugged.

“All right,” Rose said. “See you later.”

“See ya.”

“We're probably going to go to the diner after,” Rose said as she walked back toward the door. “Everyone goes.”

“Okay, cool.”

Mira watched Rose go back inside and then started to walk around the perimeter of the parking lot. Something sad and sinister had been creeping up on her ever since the phone conversation with her sister, and she was finding it difficult to shake. She sat down on the curb and took her phone out of her skirt pocket, opened her messages, and started typing to Julie.

You kind of hurt my feelings before
,
she wrote, and then immediately deleted it. She watched some seniors smoking nearby. The smell of pot floated over to her.

Do you even care about what's been happening to me for the past year or do you just think I'm a fat mess?
She stared at that one for a minute. She could feel the pressure behind her eyes. It always started there. Then moved down to her heart, her stomach.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

She looked down at her dress. The elastic around the waist was a little too tight, pinching her between her stomach and the extra roll of fat that inevitably appeared when she sat down. She suddenly felt like it was cutting off her circulation. Why had she
picked this outfit? Why had she even come here tonight?

She stood up, dusted off the back of her skirt, and put her phone back in her pocket. She looked over at the kids smoking. One of them glared at her, then looked away. Yes, of course Julie was right. She was a fat mess. She didn't try hard enough. She wasn't good enough. Her parents probably regretted even having a second child. They should have just stuck with the one and everything would have been fine. Then their mother could have gotten a new job instead of deciding to spend all of her time attempting to cure the incurable.

Mira walked toward the gym door, trying her best to take in deep breaths of the nighttime air. When she was in the hospital they had taught her to breathe with intention, a mission to fill her lungs and then empty them again, as if her body might forget. It had to be reminded.
In and out. Nothing's wrong. Try to remember that nothing's wrong.

She almost walked into Peter without seeing him. He was standing by the door, watching out over the parking lot.

“Hi, Mira,” he said when he saw her.

“Hey,” she said.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Oh yeah. Sure.”

“No wine coolers for you tonight?”

“I'm more of a whiskey girl, myself,” she said.

Peter smiled. “Let me guess. Jack Daniels, neat?”

“On the rocks,” Mira said.

He nodded. “Nice.”

His face was half illuminated by the light coming from the gym, and Mira couldn't help noticing that he looked so much younger out of his button-down shirt and tie.

“How's Molly?” Mira asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious about this half-lit conversation.

“She'll be okay.” He shook his head. “It's a shame. Molly's a smart girl, you know? Smarter than that.”

“Is she going to get in trouble?”

He shook his head. “Everyone makes stupid mistakes when they're young.”

“I guess.”

“And I wouldn't want her to get suspended for something like this. She learned enough of a lesson tonight already.”

“Yeah, but Sarah and Anna sure didn't.”

“You know what, Mira? Girls like Sarah are probably never going to learn much of anything in their lives. Until they're maybe forty-five, going through a second divorce and questioning why they always feel so alone and for what reason they could possibly have been put on this planet other than to take up space and get their nails done.”

Mira looked at him. He was completely serious.

“Of course,” he added, “I'm not saying that Sarah's even going to make it to the point of that much enlightenment.”

Mira smiled, and he smiled back. This was Peter out of dress code then. Jeans and a T-shirt. A real person.

“I like your dress,” he said. “Very ‘alternative school spirit.'”

“That's what I was going for. Early eighties moody
cheerleader realness.”

“And you know a lot about the early eighties?”

Mira laughed. “I've seen it in movies,” she said. She looked down at her dress. “Why, do you remember it differently?”

“I wasn't born in the early eighties,” Peter said.

“You weren't?”

Peter smiled. “How old do you think I am?”

“I don't know. I guess you just look like a grownup.”

“Hmmm. Thanks, I think.”

The truth was that he didn't look like a grownup at all. Not tonight. He could have been mistaken for a senior, or someone's older brother, visiting from college for the sake of nostalgia.

Mira's phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out to see that she had two texts. The first was from Sebby:
Come meet us in the art room. This dance is OVER.

The second was from her sister:
I don't even know what you're talking about. You're being a huge baby right now.

“Everything okay?” Peter asked.

Mira scrolled back in her messages.

“Oh, no,” she muttered. The last thing she had written to Julie had sent without her meaning for it to:
Do you even care about what's been happening to me for the past year or do you just think I'm a fat mess?

“Oh, no. Oh, shit.”

“Mira? You okay?”

She could feel the tears coming now. There was no holding them back. She shoved her phone in her pocket.

“Yeah, yes, sorry. I just have to go.”

She went inside and walked quickly through the gym to the main hallway, keeping her head down as she passed people. Why hadn't she deleted that message? Why was she such an idiot?

She made her way down the empty hall to the art studio. The lights were off inside, but she could see Sebby and Jeremy through the window in the door. They were sitting next to each other at one of the tables in the dark, shoulders nearly touching. She saw Sebby smile at Jeremy, then turn back to whatever they were looking at.

She felt suddenly like she couldn't breathe. Like if she sat down on the floor she would never get up again. She had to get out of there.

She made her way outside, walked down to sit on the bench at the bottom of the hill. She took out her phone and hit the number for home, tried to make her voice sound as normal as possible when she asked her mom to please come and pick her up now.