Outcast, Page 2

  She picked me up in her freshly-waxed cranberry Mercedes convertible. The top was down. She looked even more polished than her vehicle. I slid into the passenger’s seat.

  “Look at you. First day of school and your mom didn’t let you wear any makeup.” She brushed her hand across my cheek. “How are you supposed to find a boyfriend?” She laughed off her remark. I knew she wasn’t slaughtering my appearance, just wanting to expand my possibilities.

  “It will take more than makeup to find a boyfriend.”

  “Nonsense. What happened this time?” she asked.

  “It’s too involved to go into.” I shrugged her off, checking my appearance in the lighted mirror of the visor.

  “Then you’re lucky you called me. I have all the time in the world.”

  We tucked ourselves into a corner table at Steamers on the upper level of the Biltmore Center. Aunt P sipped a glass of Mondavi Merlot, watching me scarf down a plate of Cajun-rubbed shrimp with French fries.

  “Is it a boy? Tell me everything.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I called Aunt P to help me get away from Trina & Company, not to get involved in a whole conversation about them.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, Noelle.” She set her wineglass down and stared at me. “You’re talking to me, not your mother.”

  “Same thing as last year.” I laid my fork down. My appetite had suddenly diminished.

  “Same girls?”

  “Don’t forget the guy.”

  “From what I recall, he’s one of the girls, isn’t he?”

  I lifted my face into a fake smile. Jamie Gall had all female friends and plenty of feminine characteristics.

  “I thought things would be different this year. They’re not. I’ll learn to live with it.”

  “That’s a load of crap.” Aunt P polished off her wine. “You need to rise above. Haven’t I taught you anything?”

  “I guess not.” I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

  “Noelle, look at you. You’re nothing at all like you were last year … thank goodness.”

  It was an insult masked as a compliment.

  “Your mom finally collected some common sense and let you get contact lenses.” It was a true Shakespearean aside spoken into the bottom of her empty goblet.

  “I wish she’d let me go to a public school.”

  “I can understand where you’re coming from. My parents had a hard time keeping me in parochial school. But in my case, it was different. For you, going to public school would be shamefully running away from your problems. I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

  I felt intrigued, wondering if Aunt P was going to reveal a deep, hidden mystery about her past in Catholic school over a plate of shrimp.

  She leaned in. “Ready?”

  I moved closer to her. Perhaps her past would be the key to unlocking all of my problems.

  “Living well is the best revenge.” She leaned back in her chair, waiting for my reaction.

  I looked around. That was it? There had to be more. I waited for her to say something else, to bring a parade of experts into the restaurant with a platter full of problem-solving techniques. But she just sat there, gauging my reaction.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Show them how magnificent your life is. They’ll be jealous, and you’ll have the satisfaction of revenge.” She moved her hand in a flourish.

  Right. That’ll show Trina. No boyfriend, no prospects, and a friend who is as much an outcast as I am. Great advice. I delved into the few remaining pieces of shrimp on my plate.

  “And the beauty of it is you don’t actually have to live better. They just have to think you’re living better.”

  “Ah, it all makes sense to me now.”

  “Cut the sarcasm, Noelle.”

  “I’m sorry, but it seems like one of those things that just look better on paper.” Or in her mind, I thought.

  “What the hell, Noelle. You knock everything down, just like your mother.” She was genuinely angry. “No wonder you have so many enemies at school.”

  When she read the expression on my face, her words lassoed her like a noose. “I didn’t mean that.”

  But I knew she did. Her eyes were on me.

  “What?” I spat.

  “It’s nothing,” she pretended then continued as though I pressured her. “It’s just that you could make them see you even more differently if you wore makeup.”

  “I am wearing makeup.”

  She inched closer, not believing me.

  “Besides, my mother won’t let me. Remember?”

  “Do you listen to everything your mom tells you?”

  “Yes. Besides, I don’t see how painting my face is going to dramatically improve things for me at school.”

  “Nothing against your looks, honey. It’s just a fact of life. Women look better with makeup. I don’t care if you’re Elizabeth Hurley.”

  “Who?”

  The server delivered the check, and Aunt P immediately palmed it with her manicured fingertips as if I planned to take it first.

  “How about a makeover?” she suggested.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Have it your way. You’re only hurting yourself.”

  She pushed her chair back from the table, leaving me alone with her depressing words.

  As if the day wasn’t bad enough, we had dry pork chops, undercooked broccoli, and an interrogation for dinner. Mom served large helpings of food, interjecting questions about the day with each forkful. My dad shoveled the dry meat and weed-like vegetable into his mouth. He said nothing, but heard everything.

  “Tell me about your first day of school? Was it fun?”

  “Mom, really. Give me a break,” my sister, Becca, said with a tone. “It’s school.”

  “That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.”

  “My classes suck—”

  “Watch your mouth, young lady,” Mom interjected.

  Becca continued anyway. “There are no cute guys in any of my classes, and Mr. Hammond in Trigonometry is a total moron.”

  “I thought you had a boyfriend.” I prodded the meat with the prongs of my fork.

  Becca glared at me.

  I didn’t want to debate Becca’s social life, so I forced a clump of broccoli into my mouth and looked away.

  “What about you, Noelle? Did you have a nice day?”

  “Great.” I chewed the undercooked sprig.

  “Good.” She turned to her plate, either not noticing or ignoring the sarcasm. “By the way, I made an appointment at Celine’s for you on Thursday. I thought it would look nice if you added some curl to your hair. It would give you some personality like Rebecca.”

  I let my fork drop and slunk back in my chair. Her words stung me. The poison of them spilled through my system. She noticed.

  “God, mom. Perms are so 1980s,” Becca chided.

  If I had said God in our oh-so-Catholic household, I would have been subjected to temporal punishment. But it was Becca. So…nothing.

  “I just meant that it would give you a different look.”

  Right.

  “May I be excused?”

  “You haven’t finished your dinner.”

  “I don’t feel well.”

  She looked skeptical. “When you’re finished.”

  “But I think it was the macaroni and cheese I had for lunch.”

  Mom ignored me, so I looked across the table. “Dad?”

  He nodded his approval through his pork chops. After walking out of the room, I heard the muted sounds of my parents’ discussion. Mom’s voice echoed loudly. “What? You’re undermining my authority now?”

  “I’m not undermining your authority.”

  “Then what do you call it?”

  By the time I reached my room and locked the door, their words slurred together like a foreign language. I plunged into the bed, thumbed through an art book, an
d eventually fell asleep. What a remarkable first day of sophomore year.

  Drama was my favorite class of the day. That is, until Trina and Jamie—the Iago and Puck of the high school stage— showed up.

  Grace and I tethered ourselves to the back row while Grace rummaged through a bag of beaded friendship bracelets she had made.

  “Look.” Grace nudged me.

  “I see.” My tone was less than enthusiastic.

  Acting I with Father Dodd. He possessed the nervous energy of a poodle, dancing around the stage, waiting for the bell. He wore his collar, but tried to mask the fact that he was a priest by donning gentle weaves of blonde in his sandy hair. He worked hard to be youthful and hip, but the truth remained that he was still an un-hip priest. I felt certain he missed his true calling: a struggling Hollywood actor who belonged in the depths of the Los Angeles lifestyle.

  The bell rang.

  “All right, budding actors. Welcome to Acting I. I’m Father Dodd, the thespian of the school. But you can call me Chris. I see all of you are spread across the theater. I would like everyone grouped in one area.” Father Dodd surveyed the auditorium. “You and you,” he pointed to Trina and Jamie, “Move in the center area here.”

  With a roll of the eyes, they reluctantly budged.

  Father Dodd wasn’t finished. “And you two in the nosebleed seats…” he was talking to us. “Why don’t you move behind these two?”

  God, no. Behind Trina and Jamie. I thought of dashing to the guidance counselor’s office. Despite my interest in acting, a deep desire to drop Drama and opt for a low-profile subject like pottery or shop crept through me.

  “The rest of you pinch inward toward the center of the theater.”

  We moved behind Trina and Jamie. Grace fumbled with her endless supply of bracelets. While Father Dodd took roll, she retrieved a bangle of rose quartz and jade. She hesitantly tapped Trina on the shoulder. Slowly pivoting at the obvious disturbance, Trina glared at us. Like a peace offering, Grace held out the bracelet to her.

  “Here. I made it myself.”

  Trina and Jamie eyed one another skeptically. What was Grace doing? Unless that bracelet was laced with arsenic, she had no right offering it to Trina.

  Trina managed to choke out a muffled thanks, complemented by a roll of the eyes that Grace didn’t see.

  I leaned into Grace with my shoulder. “What are you doing?” I mouthed. Grace ignored me.

  I was drawn away from the beaded jewelry fiasco by Trina’s question. “So, have you been in anything famous?” she asked Father Dodd, then looked at Jamie with an odious smile.

  “I’ve had several parts in various plays in college. I played Mr. Velasco in a charitable production of Barefoot in the Park.”

  “Please,” Trina uttered. A snide smile curved into a fishhook at the corner of her mouth. Jamie blanketed his laugh with a hand.

  “What a loser,” Grace whispered to me, referring to Father Dodd.

  “We traveled around the state performing the play at various nursing homes.” He continued as though he needed to explain himself to a spoiled and selfish North Scottsdale brat. “It proved to be an excellent learning experience.”

  I felt sorry for him. He only wanted to impart his passion for acting onto us. But Trina humiliated even him in her malicious attempt to gain attention.

  In the middle of Father Dodd’s unbridled recital of lines from his favorite play, Barefoot in the Park, the main door swung open, and it felt like brightness flooded the theater like stadium lights. It was the guy from the cafeteria, Grace’s mystery man.

  Father Dodd scurried to the fourth wall where his clipboard and roster lay. He scanned the list of names. “You must be...Chad McCormick.”

  Chad snaked his way through the theater seats. I could deny it all I wanted, but he was hot. Apparently, Trina thought so, too. She seemed mesmerized by the sight of him. Even Jamie worshiped his appearance.

  Chad handed a pass to Father Dodd and took a seat at the end of our row. He sat there like a temptation, a bag of chocolate I just couldn’t leave alone. When he caught me glancing at him, a smile crept to the side of his mouth. I turned away as the heat rose to my cheeks. Suddenly, theater had rekindled a fire in me.

  I quickly extinguished the flame. What was I thinking? Someone like Chad could not possibly hold a genuine interest in me. I was the class loser, the outcast that everyone reveled making fun of. He was probably mocking me, too. I focused my attention back on Father Dodd.

  With the bell, Grace and I filed into the hallway with the rest of the class.

  “I forgot something. I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I entered the darkness of the theater in search of my forgotten notebook. Father Dodd slumped in a chair at the lonely eaves of the stage. He glanced up, sadly.

  “Left my notebook,” I explained.

  “Sure.” He studied a book, probably secretly reprising his forgotten role as Mr. Velasco.

  “I liked your class.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. I knew he needed an ego boost. A smile perched itself on his lips and he returned to his reading material.

  I went back to my vacated seat. As I leaned to pick up my notebook, I noticed tiny beads of rose quartz and jade littered on the floor of the next row. Sliding between the seats, I collected the remnants of the discarded bracelet. Grace would be in agony if she knew what Trina had done to it.

  “See you tomorrow, Father Dodd.”

  “Call me Chris.”

  Two

  The ocotillos writhed and twisted out of the sandy, desert floor as dust devils curled and raced one another. The monsoon season proved a fraud, leaving the last of the autumn months dry and arid. Purple prickly pear, saguaro, and Palo Verde basked in the Sonoran heat. The wind sent tumbleweeds somersaulting halfheartedly across the road.

  As I ran that morning, the September sun bled carmine and tangerine from its place in the eastern sky. The Arizona fever scorched the alien, oxide green of the golf courses to a raw sienna. Cumulous clouds, tethered to the air, taunted us. In the Midwest, people call this heat Indian summer. To us, it was a cool-down from the daunting summer temperatures of 120 degrees.

  It was Sunday, another day of wiggling my way out of church. It became a ritual, a ceremony, and a game. I crept down the stairs with predatory stealth, slipping out the back door before my mother even realized I was awake. I escaped the house early enough to avoid 8:00 a.m. mass. My Reeboks beat a rhythm on the asphalt of Civic Center Boulevard. Sweat dampened my sports bra, pooled between my breasts.

  When I finished my run and returned home, I was greeted by the beat of The Black Eyed Peas, and I knew Becca had evaded church, too. She took advantage of every moment, every second, of our parents’ absence. She paraded around the living room, phone pressed to her ear. She spotted me and made a curt one-eighty.

  “Oh my God! Tell me he did not say that.”

  Her chats always revolved around some guy. The new one: Carl. Unfortunately, her room was right next to mine, so I heard everything whether I wanted to or not.

  The music throbbed. I pounded, and Fergie sunk to a lower volume. I preferred the rich sounds of Miles Davis, so I slid Kind of Blue into my compact disc player and relaxed. Stepping out of my sweaty running clothes, I stood in front of the full-length mirror.

  Strong legs. I spent grueling summer days jogging the city streets while most others ducked into the swell of icy central air. Running became therapy for me.

  As my eyes traveled upward, I cringed at the sight of myself. My figure was twelve-year-old boyish. I had no curves like my sister or my Aunt P. You’re a late bloomer like I was, my mother always reminded me. I didn’t relish the thought of turning into the full-figured woman she blossomed into. I didn’t want to be a reincarnation of her. I didn’t want to be her at all.

  Just then, her voice. “This is the last week you girls get out of church. Do you hear me?”

  My dad stayed in the background, never
interfering with anything she did. Sometimes it seemed like I didn’t even have a dad.

  “Rebecca! Noelle!”

  We had dodged church, but there was no escaping the repercussions. I slid into a clean set of clothes and reluctantly headed out my bedroom door.

  “Is it too much to ask to go to church as a family anymore?”

  We used to attend church as a family every Sunday. Becca dropped out when she discovered boys. I stopped when hypocrisy became more than just a spelling word.

  “Next week. No excuses. I mean it.” My mother’s voice peeled my eardrums.

  “Can we talk about this later? I’ve got a date.”

  “Not on Sunday you don’t!”

  But Becca slunk around the door in her spaghetti-strapped mini dress and was gone. My mother reeled around. It was all on me.

  “Where did you sneak off to this morning?” Her eyes glowered. “Running again? That excuse has run its course. Dying or not, you’re going.”

  She stood staring at me for a moment like I was something created by Jackson Pollack. Then she looped her fingers in my hair, and her gaze softened to a sympathetic stare. “We need to do something about this hair. I think curls would really bring out your features. Wouldn’t you like a perm?”

  She had to be kidding. Becca was right. No one under the age of forty received perms anymore.

  “I’ll think about it,” I lied.

  “Let me know and I’ll reschedule that appointment with Celine.”

  I had no intention of getting a perm. I only humored her because it seemed to make her happy. As for church next Sunday, I would get out of it one way or another. If it took truly bleeding to death from a massive hematoma, then so be it.

  Eighty-two degrees when I left the house. I spent Sunday afternoons with Grace. We held our weekly study time, which was mostly comprised of talking and daydreaming. We became fast friends in seventh grade after the Jerry Searfus incident, something I tried to forget but never could.