Before I Fall (22 page)

“I’m sure
you
understand.” Tara squints a little, like she’s trying hard to make out the name tag from a distance of six inches. “It’s Irma, isn’t it?”

Courtney comes up behind us, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a gigantic feathered robin sprouting out of its side. “Did people ever call you
Worma
when you were little? Or
Squirma
?”

Irma folds her mouth into a thin white line, reaches for my card, and swipes.

“Guten Tag,”
I say as we leave: the only German I know.

Tara and Co. are still laughing about Irma as we pull out of the parking lot of La Villa. “I can’t believe it,” Courtney keeps repeating, leaning forward to look at me, like I’m suddenly going to disappear. This time they’ve given me shotgun automatically. I didn’t even have to call it. “I can’t freaking believe it.”

I allow myself a small smile as I turn to the window, and am
momentarily startled by the reflection I see there: huge dark eyes, smoke and shadow, full red lips. Then I remember the makeup. For a second I didn’t recognize myself.

“You’re so awesome,” Tara says, then palms the steering wheel and curses as we just miss the light.

“Please.” I wave the air vaguely. I’m feeling pretty good. I’m almost glad Lindsay and I got into a fight this morning.

“Oh, shit, no way.” Courtney beats on my shoulder as a huge Chevy Tahoe, vibrating with bass, pulls up next to us. Even though it’s freezing, all the windows are down: it’s the college guys from La Villa, the ones who checked us out earlier. Who checked
me
out. They’re laughing and fighting over something in the car—one of them yells, “Mike, you’re a pussy”—pretending not to see us, the way guys do when they’re just dying to look.

“They are so hot,” Tara says, leaning over me to get a clearer view, then ducking quickly back to the wheel.

“You should get their number.”

“Hello? There are four of them.”

“Their
numbers
, then.”

“Totally.”

“I’m gonna flash them,” I say, and am suddenly thrilled with the perfect, pure simplicity of it: I’m going to do it. So much easier and cleaner than
Maybe I should
or
Won’t we get in trouble?
or
Oh my God, I could never
. Yes. Three letters. I twist around to Courtney. “Do you dare me?”

Her eyes are doing that bug thing again. Tara and Bethany stare at me like I’ve sprouted tentacles.

“You wouldn’t,” Courtney says.

“You can’t,” Tara says.

“I can, I would, and I’m going to.” I roll down the window, and the cold slams me, blots out everything, numbs my whole body so I just feel myself in bits and pieces, an elbow bobbing here, a thigh cramping, fingers tingling. The music pumping from the boys’ car is so loud it makes my ears hurt, but I can’t hear any words or melody, just the rhythm, throbbing, throbbing—so loud it’s not even sound anymore, just vibration, feeling.

“Hey.” At first I can only croak the word out, so I clear my throat and try again. “Hey. Guys.”

The driver swivels his head in my direction. I can hardly focus I’m so keyed up, but in that second I see he’s not that cute, actually—he has kind of crooked teeth and a rhinestone stud in one ear, like he’s a rapper or something—but then he says, “Hey, cutie,” and I see his three friends lean over toward the window to look, one, two, three heads popping up like jacks-in-the-box, like the Whack-a-Mole game at Dave & Buster’s,
one
,
two
,
three
, and I’m lifting my shirt, and there’s a roar and a rushing, singing sound in my ears—laughter? screaming?—and Courtney’s yelling, “Go, go, go.” Then our tires screech, and the car lurches forward, sliding a bit, the wind biting my face, and the smell of scorched rubber and gasoline stinking up
the air. My heart sinks slowly back from my throat to my chest, and the warmth and feeling comes back to my body. I roll up the window. I can’t explain the feelings going through me, a rush like you get from laughing too hard or spinning too long in a circle. It’s not exactly happiness, but I’ll take it.

“Priceless!
Legendary!
” Courtney’s thumping the back of my seat, and Bethany’s just shaking her head and reaching forward to touch me, eyes wide, amazed, like I’m a saint and she’s trying to cure herself of a disease. Tara’s screaming with laughter. She can barely watch the road, her eyes are tearing up so badly. She chokes out, “Did you see their
faces
? Did you
see
?” and I realize I didn’t see. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything but the roaring around me, heavy and loud, and it occurs to me that I’m not sure whether this is what it’s like to be really, truly alive or this is what it’s like to be dead, and it strikes me as hilarious. Courtney thumps me one more time, and I see her face rising behind me in the rearview mirror, red as a sun, and I start laughing too, and the four of us laugh all the way back to Ridgeview—over eighteen miles—while the world streaks past us in a smear of blacks and grays, like a bad painting of itself.

We stop at Tara’s house so everyone can change. Tara helps get me into my dress again, and after I slip on the fur shrug and the earrings and let my hair down—which is all wavy from being twisted up in a half-knot all day—I turn to the mirror
and my heart actually reindeer-prances in my chest. I look at least twenty-five. I look like somebody else. I close my eyes, remember standing in the bathroom when I was little as the steam from my shower retreated from the mirrors, praying for a transformation. I remember the sick taste of disappointment every time my face reemerged, as plain as it ever was. But this time when I open my eyes it works. There I am: different and gorgeous and not myself.

Dinner’s on me, of course. We go to Le Jardin du Roi, this super expensive French restaurant where all the waiters are hot and French. We pick the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu, and nobody asks to see our IDs, so we order a round of champagne. It’s so good, we ask for another round even before the appetizers come. Bethany gets drunk right away and starts flirting with the waiters in bad French, just because last year she spent the summer in Provence. We must order half the menu: tiny melt-in-your-mouth cheese puffs, thick slabs of pâté that probably have more calories than you’re supposed to eat in a day, goat cheese salad and mussels in white wine and steak béarnaise and a whole sea bass with its head still attached and crème brûlée and mousse au chocolat. I think it’s the best food I’ve ever tasted, and I eat until I can hardly breathe, and if I take one more bite I really will bust my dress. Then, as I’m signing the check, one of the waiters (the cutest one) brings over four miniature glasses of sweet pink liquor
for the digestion
, except, of course, he says it
for ze deejestee-on
.

I don’t realize how much I’ve had to drink until I stand up and the world swings wildly for a second, like it’s struggling to find its balance, and I think maybe the
world’s
drunk, not me, and start to giggle. We step out into the freezing air and it helps sober me up a little.

I check my phone and see that I have a text from Rob.
What’s up w u? We had a plan 4 2nite
.

“Come on, Sam,” Courtney calls. She and Bethany have climbed into the backseat of the Civic. They’re waiting for me to take shotgun again. “Party time.”

I quickly write a text back to Rob.
We’re on. C u soon
.

Then I get in the car, and we head to the party.

The party’s just getting started when we arrive, and I beeline for the kitchen. Since it’s still early and pretty clear of people I notice a ton of details in the rooms I haven’t seen before. The place is so stocked with little carved wood statues and funky oil paintings and old books it could be a museum.

The kitchen is brightly lit and everything here looks sharp and separate. There are two kegs lined up directly inside the doorway, and most of the people are gathered here. It’s basically guys at this point, plus some sophomores. They’re huddled in clumps, gripping their plastic cups like they contain their whole life force, and their smiles are so forced I can tell their cheeks are hurting.

“Sam.” Rob sees me and does a double take as soon as I
come in. He shoulders his way toward me, then backs me up against the wall, leaning a hand on either side of my head so I’m penned in. “I didn’t think you were gonna show.”

“I told you I was coming.” I put my hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat skip under my fingers. It makes me sad for some reason. “Did you get my text?”

He shrugs. “You were acting weird all day. I thought maybe you didn’t like my rose.”

Luv ya.
I’d forgotten about that; forgotten about how upset I was. None of that matters now. They’re just words, anyway. “The rose was fine.”

Rob smiles and puts one hand on my head, like I’m a pet. “You look hot, babe,” he says. “You want a beer?”

I nod. The wine I had at the restaurant is already wearing off. I feel way too sober, too aware of my whole body, my arms hanging there like dead weights. Rob has started to turn away when he suddenly stops, staring down at my shoes. He looks up at me, half amused, half puzzled. “What are those?” He points at Anna’s boots.

“Shoes.” I point one of my toes and the leather doesn’t even budge. This pleases me for some reason. “You like them?”

Rob makes a face. “They look like army boots or something.”

“Well,
I
like them.”

He shakes his head. “They don’t look like you, babe.”

I think of all the things I’ve done today that would shock
Rob: cutting all my classes, kissing Mr. Daimler, smoking pot with Anna Cartullo, stealing my mom’s credit card. Things that aren’t
like me
. I’m not even sure what that means; I’m not sure how you know. I mentally try to add up all the things I’ve done in my life, but no clear picture emerges, nothing that will tell me what kind of person I am—just a lot of haziness and blurred edges, indistinct memories of laughing and driving around. I feel like I’m trying to take a picture into the sun: all of the people in my memories are coming back featureless and interchangeable.

“You don’t know everything about me,” I say.

He gives a half laugh. “I know you look cute when you’re mad.” He taps a finger between my eyes. “Don’t frown so much. You’ll get wrinkles.”

“How about that beer?” I say, grateful when Rob turns away. I was hoping that seeing him would relax me, but instead it’s making me jumpy.

When Rob comes back with my beer, I take my cup and go upstairs.

At the top of the stairs I almost collide with Kent. He takes a quick step backward when he sees me.

“Sorry,” we both say at the same time, and I can feel myself blushing.

“You came,” he says. His eyes look greener than ever. There’s a weird expression on his face—his mouth is all twisted like he’s chewing on something sour.

“Seems like it’s the place to be.” I look away, wishing he would stop staring at me. Somehow I know he’s going to say something awful. He’s going to say that he can see through me again. And I get this crazy urge to ask him what he sees—like he can help
me
figure out
me
. But I’m afraid of his answer.

He looks at his feet. “Sam, I wanted to say…”

“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. Then it hits me: he knows what happened with Mr. Daimler. He can tell. I know I’m being paranoid, but the certainty is so strong it makes my head spin, and I have to reach out and grab on to the banister. “If this is about what happened in math, I don’t want to hear it.”

He looks up at me again, his mouth set in a line. “What
did
happen?”

“Nothing.” Once again I feel Mr. Daimler’s weight pressing into me, the heat of his mouth clamped over mine. “It’s none of your business.”

“Daimler’s a dirtbag, you know. You should stay away from him.” He looks at me sideways. “You’re too good for that.”

I think of the note that sailed onto my desk earlier. I
knew
it was from him. The thought of Kent McFuller feeling sorry for me, looking down on me, makes something break inside.

My words come out in a rush. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. We’re not even friends. We’re—we’re nothing.”

Kent takes a step back, lets out a noise that’s halfway between a snort and a laugh. “You’re really unbelievable, you know that?” He shakes his head, looking disgusted or sad, or
maybe both. “Maybe everyone’s right about you. Maybe you are just a shallow—” He stops.

“What? A shallow
what
?” I feel like slapping him to get him to look at me, but he keeps his eyes turned toward the wall. “A shallow bitch, right? Is that what you think?”

His eyes click back on mine, clear and dull and hard, like rock. Now I wish he hadn’t looked at me at all. “Maybe. Maybe it’s like you said. We’re not friends. We’re not anything.”

“Yeah? Well, at least I don’t walk around pretending to be better than everybody else.” It explodes out of me before I can stop it. “You’re not perfect, you know. I’m sure you’ve done bad things. I’m sure you do bad things.” As soon as I say it, though, I get the feeling it’s not true. I just know it somehow. Kent McFuller doesn’t do bad things. At least, he doesn’t do bad things to other people.

Now Kent
does
laugh. “
I’m
the one who pretends to be better than everybody?” He narrows his eyes. “That’s really funny, Sam. Anyone ever tell you how funny you are?”

“I’m not kidding.” I’m balling my fists up against my thighs. I don’t know why I’m so angry at him, but I could shake him, or cry. He knows about Mr. Daimler. He knows all about me, and he hates me for it. “You shouldn’t make people feel bad just because they’re not, like, perfect or whatever.”

His mouth falls open. “I never said—”

“It’s not my fault I can’t be like you, okay? I don’t get up in the morning thinking the world is one big shiny, happy place,
okay? That’s just not how I work. I don’t think I can be fixed.” I mean to say,
I don’t think “it” can be fixed,
but it comes out wrong, and suddenly I’m on the verge of crying. I have to take big gulping breaths to try to keep the tears down. I turn away from Kent so he won’t see.