Socially Awkward (11 page)

She stopped, smiling directly at me.

“That sounds great, doesn’t it?
You’re too small
for some of your clothes! Look! These are a size Medium, Jen. I’m really proud of you, you know.”

I smiled back at her, and realized that the new clothes were worth every penny. She had a point. I couldn’t just lose the weight if I wasn’t going to dress the part. I didn’t need to start baring cleavage, but I could certainly afford to buy clothing in the right size for a change, instead of a size or two bigger to hide my frumpy figure. It felt good to do something for me, for a change.

“So what am I wearing tonight?” I asked, in an effort to get us back on track.

“This,” Claire said grandly, sliding a gorgeous black something-or-other out of a Macy’s bag. “This is your new LBD.”

“LB…what?”

“Little black dress, Jen.” She rolled her eyes at me, holding it up in one hand and gesturing with the other. “See? It’s little, black, and it’s a dress. It’s an LBD, a wardrobe necessity. This is what you wear when you want to look sophisticated and attract attention.”

“Won’t I be a little overdressed?”

“A-ha!” She exclaimed, waving it around in triumph. “That’s the beauty of the LBD! You can dress it up or dress it down. If we pair this with the right jewelry and shoes, you’ll fit right in.”

I squinted at her for a moment, letting her words settle on my fashion-dense brain.

“Just trust me, okay? I’ve got this. I know what I’m doing.”

Then, without my permission, Claire began flying around me in a flurry of activity. She was like my fairy godmother, come to rescue me from my own poor fashion circumstances and dress me for the ball. Makeup got tossed at my face, my hair was wrestled into some form of styling device, and eventually, that LBD made its way onto my body. I had to give Claire credit: whether she believed Sean would give me the time of day or not, she was certainly doing as much as she could to make the night go in my favor.

I have the best sister in the world.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Claire convinced me to let her drive so I could concentrate on staying calm and looking beautiful. Those were her words, not mine. I plugged the address into her GPS and tried to regulate my pulse as she sped along the road, taking turn after turn to bring me closer to Sean’s house.

He lived in a quiet part of town, in a large
Colonial
house at the end of a cul-de-sac
—his parents’ place, I assumed
. Most of the houses around his were darkened, no lights on and no cars in the driveway. His house, on the other hand, was fully lit up. Music filtered out of the closed windows and into the neighborhood, as guest after guest spilled in through the front door. I’d never been to a house party like this before, not even in college, and I really wanted to turn on my heel and bolt in the other direction.

I took one look at Claire, as she pulled over to the curb and parked behind a silver Audi, and could see that she was having the same thought.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, trying to sound light and eager.

“We’re at the O’Dwyers’ house,” she said, flatly. After a pause, she turned on me and grabbed my wrist. “Why are we here, Jen?”

I tried to back away from
her as much as I could, flattening myself
against the passenger side door. I couldn’t break Claire’s grip around my wrist, though, or her death glare.

“Claire, let go. I told you… we’ve been talking online. I really wanted to
see
him
again
in person… and I…”

“Why do you think this will be any different from the last time, Jen?” Her voice was high-pitched, almost tinged with a hint of panic. “Sean O’Dwyer? Come on!”

“Why is it so crazy that I want to see him? I’m an adult now and so is he. People change; I’ve changed. Can’t I have another chance?” I fought to keep my own panic out of my voice, and probably failed. “Please come in with me. I’ve worked so hard to be… to be what he expects me to be. I have to try.”

“What do you mean,
what he expects you to be
? What have you been telling him, Jen?” She finally let go of my wrist, but only so she could run her hand angrily through her hair. I watched her wrestling to keep her frustration in check, at least long enough to hear me out.

“I may have… friended him as Olivia,” I said sheepishly. As Claire turned her glare back on me, I saw that her expression was positively lethal and I was just a little bit terrified. Desperate to get my whole story out before she opened her mouth to say what
ever
she was thinking, I dove into the most abridged version of events possible. I told her about him recognizing me but being terrible at names, then how we had been flirting back and forth, and I’d been working so hard at the gym so I could look like Olivia.

“
There are so many things wrong with
this;
I don’t even know where to begin…” 
Her acid tone wasn’t as bad as it could have been, so it was a small victory.
“He thinks your name is Olivia?”

“Yes, but I was planning on telling him it was my fake model name or something,” I said, waving it off. “I was going to figure that out later. What I really need is for him to see me and think it’s the same person. I tried so hard to…”

“And you brought
me
with you to do this?”

“You’re my sister, Claire… I wanted the moral support.”
I felt helpless, like I was losing the battle. I hadn’t come all this way for her to drop me off on the porch and speed away into the night.

“Fine, I’m here.” She said, throwing open the car door. “Let’s go and get this over with. I’ll be your moral support. I’ll gladly play my part in this fool-proof scheme you’ve concocted. But when it doesn’t work, Jen…”

Climbing out of my side of the car, I bit down hard on my lip to collect my nerves. I couldn’t let her words or her anger
shake my confidence
now. I’d known this would happen when Claire discovered it was Sean’s party. I’d prepared myself for her to freak out and get overprotective. Now, all I could do was go in there and face him for myself.

She trailed a little bit behind me as I pushed my way into the crowded living room, like she was my bodyguard or something. I resigned myself to accept Claire’s attitude and carry on with the plan. First, I had to find Sean for myself.

He’s been
right about one thing: there were definitely people there that I recognized from school. Not anyone that I really wanted to see, of course, mostly the other jocks and popular kids who’d made my life miserable as a junior high and high school student. I fought the urge to slink around them and instead strode confidently through the crowd, nudging a former quarterback here and an ex-cheerleader there. They weren’t the reason I was here; I couldn’t let them distract me.

And then, I saw him. There he was, Sean O’Dwyer, in all his handsome glory. He was standing in a mixed group of guys and girls in the kitchen, telling a story about some legendary baseball game he pitched back in the day, and I found myself instantly captivated by his voice. It hadn’t changed at all, still ringing out with that powerful timber, that hint of pure cheerfulness. I listened to him talk, frozen in place long enough for Claire to catch up to me, and fell enraptured
by
a story I’d heard before. No, a story I’d witnessed firsthand, actually. I never missed a single one of Sean’s baseball games in high school
, so of course I knew it well
.

“I’m three outs from throwing my first no-hitter, the last game of the regular season, and this huge power-hitting kid comes up to the plate. It was Bobby Jo
rdan from, uh, Brighton High? Right? Remember him?” He smiled at his own memories, talking louder and louder to work the crowd up for the story’s big finale.
For a moment, if I closed my eyes, it was like nothing in my life had ever changed. There was Sean, just feet away from me, and here I was, unnoticed and unseen.

Just as I opened my eyes again, ready for Sean to keep talking, I realized he’d stopped mid-sentence and was staring at me.

“Olivia?” He almost whispered it, nearly too quiet for me to hear. If I hadn’t been staring at his mouth, I might not have known what he said.

This was it. This was my moment, the one I’d dreamt of for weeks, months. Okay, for years. Sean,
the
Sean, was walking directly toward me, pushing other people out of the way to get closer.  As he approached, I could smell his cologne—mixed with the scent of beer—waft towards me. I had done it. I had finally…

“Olivia, hi,” he said at last. But he wasn’t talking to me.

“Um…” said Claire, at a total loss. She grabbed my arm, her eyes darting from Sean’s face to mine. There was a silent plea in those eyes, asking me what she should do. I didn’t know what to tell her. I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“I’m so glad you can make it,” Sean said, grinning ear to ear. He was totally smitten with Claire, the one he thought was Olivia. How could he think it was her? Olivia was me… she was a picture of
me
, just doctored to look a little thinner and a little…

Oh my God.

I looked at my sister as though for the first time, noting the shape of her face, the wave of her blonde hair, the contour of her shoulders, her waist.
I’d made myself into Claire with all of those photo edits.
Claire
was
Olivia
, at least in
body
. How could I not see this before?

As the silence between Sean and Claire continued, they both seemed to look to me for answers. As my eyes connected with Sean’s, I knew that there was still hope for me somehow. There was still a way for me to win Sean, once and for all.
I’d come too far to give up now.

“Hi Sean,” I said, smiling easily. “It’s Jennifer. We went to school together too… and I’m Olivia’s roommate.” I nudged Claire as I said this, and she turned on me with a look of sheer terror. Or anger. Something unpleasant.

“Hi,” she said timidly. “Um, Sean. Nice to see you.”

When Sean leaned over and hugged my sister, it really only stung a little. Just the tiniest bit.

But this, like all things, was only temporary.

****

Back at home, I unfolded the rest of my plan for my sister. Bringing Cla
i
re along had seemed like a disaster at first, but now I could see it for what it really was: the perfect solution to all my problems. If Sean thought Claire was Olivia and I was her roommate, then fo
und out that Olivia was a heart
less bitch who would mistreat him and lead him on… that left me, plain old Jennifer, to rush in and save the day. It was the perfect plan, if only I could get Claire to agree to play her part in the charade.

“No, no, no,”
she shook her head vehemently
, almost hard enough to produce sound. I was worried for her neck. What if she just snapped it right in half, shaking so hard?

“Please,” I squeezed my hands together in a prayer, leaning forward toward her on the couch. “This is the only way, Claire.”

“So just because I’m
slightly
thinner and have
the right hair color
, you think I can pull off acting like some imaginary person you’ve created?”

“You also have bigger boobs,” I said
pointedly. “But Victoria, her S
ecret, and I are working on that. Besides, i
t’s just for one night, just long enough to do this one thing… please?”

She shook her head again, but more softly this time. If she was starting to resist less, that could be a good sign for me. Keep it up and Operation: Olivia Implosion would be a success.

“I’m sorry, Jen, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Just cut ties with
Sean once and for all
and forget about it. Nothing good ever comes from making up lie after lie to get close to someone. Either tell him the truth and get it over with, or just end the project early. I’m sure you have enough data to write your paper.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Claire that I’d already started writing the paper based on what I’d learned with Olivia’s profile so far. She was right; I had more than enough material to write all 20 pages and delete the profile, but I found that I couldn’t.  Was I addicted to the freedom of anonymity? To being someone I wasn’t? Was it Sean that was keeping me online? Without the profile, I’d have no tie to him at all. And then what?

“If you really won’t help me…” Before I could finish my sentence, Claire was shaking her head again. I sighed deeply and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “I’ll just have to come up with something else. Do you think I could pay a stripper to do it for me?”

Claire smacked me in the face with a pillow.

“Well, if my sister
—who’s already been mistaken for Olivia—
won’t help me, what choice do I have but to turn to prostitutes?”

Another smack in the face.

“Okay, okay! Stop!” I laughed, taking a third hit to the side of my temple. “I’ll fix it on my own. I promise! No strippers or hookers.”

I took one final blow before Claire started laughing herself, then I wrestled the pillow from her grip and hit her back a few times.