The First Time She Drowned (22 page)

I TELL MYSELF
that the only reason I’m going to the dance is to prove something to Liz. I tell Zoey I’m just going to the dance to appease her. But for the last twenty-four hours, I’ve taken out the dress several times when Zoey isn’t around and held it up to myself, trying to judge my own image, to see what Zoey saw when she looked at me in it. In these moments, I find myself imagining the excitement of such a night, the magic of it, and I can almost feel myself stepping into a life that is more, that is really and truly a life.

By Friday, the day of the dance, there is such an anticipatory energy in the air that I almost get swept up in it. I dare to consider that maybe Liz is right—that perhaps the world I’m so defended against is the one of the past, that if I can let my guard down a little now, open myself up to the possibility of new things, life might actually be different. Better.

“Okay, we need to go,” Zoey says, standing at the door with curlers in her hair while she shakes her hands to dry her manicure.

We’ve rented a room at the hotel where the dance will be so we don’t drink and drive. Zoey has already packed her overnight bag, but I’m still trying to figure out everything I need to bring.

“I’m sure I’m forgetting something,” I say.

Zoey looks at my full-sized open suitcase, already stuffed to the brim with makeup, hair dryer, three pairs of shoes, the dress and pajamas. “I think you’re good.”

The phone rings.

“Don’t answer that,” Zoey says. “There are minibar snacks
waiting for us.”

I move toward the phone anyway, despising the idiotic part of me that hopes it’s Chris. I look at the caller ID. “It’s my mother.”

“Don’t.”

“Okay,” I say. I stare at the phone, letting it ring. Then, at the last second I give in, like always. “I’ll just tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.” I pick up. “Hi, Mom.”

There is silence. Then soft crying. “Your father found out about the affair. He’s threatening to file for divorce.”

I sit down on my bed. My jaw drops, and I notice how weird it is that that actually happens when you’re shocked. I’m not even sure if it’s the news or the fact that my mother is crying over my father that stuns me more.

“What happened?” I say. To Zoey I mouth, “Holy shit.”

“He listened in on a phone call.”

“To Pete?”

“No, to
you
.”

The words land with an unexpected thud. I think of my father, and regardless of everything that has happened between us, I feel like a criminal for colluding. Suddenly I understand why Zoey wanted to protect me from being involved.

“What about Gavin?” I say. “Is he okay?” I imagine my poor little brother in the middle of all this.

“He’s fine. Cassie,” she sobs, “I need you. Please come home.”

“You want me to come home?” I’m in shock.

I have waited my whole life to go home, even when I was actually living there. And now, at last, an invitation.

I look up and see Zoey staring at me with widened eyes. I turn away. I don’t know how long my mother wants me there, but I’ll worry about school another day. If I fail out, so be it. “I’ll head out first thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” she says, an edge in her voice.

“It’s just . . . we’re literally on our way to a dance right now. We already rented a room and I promised Zoey I’d go.”

Zoey stares at the floor and her shoulders sag as if she too can hear the silence on the other end of the phone.

“I can’t let her go by herself,” I say. “And if I came home tonight, I’d get there so late you’d be sleeping anyway. Besides, I want to go. It’s the homecoming dance. Nothing will have changed by tomorrow morning, right?”

Silence.

“Mom?”

I see Zoey pull a curler sadly out of her hair.

“I never would have had an affair if you hadn’t put it in my head that I didn’t love your father,” my mother says with quiet menace.

“What? I never said that!
You
said that!” My head feels like it’s underwater, trapped and spinning in the throes of a breaking wave. “You’re saying this is my fault?”

Everything is upside down. Her feelings, my feelings, who is right, who is wrong. It’s true that I knew the affair was happening, that I was even happy for her happiness. But does that mean I’m to blame? Again to blame? I struggle against the force of an ocean, trying to find the top, the clear sky.

Then I see Zoey staring at me, mouth agape, eyes bright with
anger. There is actual horror in her face that stuns me. “It is
not
your fault,” she mouths, her eyes boring into me.

“Are you coming or not?” my mother says.

I hold Zoey’s gaze. I don’t answer my mother right away, don’t know the answer still. Then the line goes dead.

“Mom?” I say. “Mom!”

I stare at the phone in my hand. I look at Zoey. Then I call back frantically, but each time I try, my mother picks up without saying a word and hangs up immediately.

Zoey’s face softens, seeing my panic. “If you need to go, go,” she says. It’s all she wants in the world, to attend this dance together, and yet, I can tell that she means it.

I put the phone back in its cradle, stand up and go to my suitcase.

“WE’RE GOING TO
have the best time,” Zoey calls to me for the tenth time as I step out of the shower and grab one of the hotel’s terrycloth bathrobes. She has been walking on eggshells since the phone call with my mother, eyeing me skeptically when I tell her that I’m fine, that I’m used to it, that I’m already over it.

“Here. You could use this.” She cracks open the bathroom door and passes me a strange green concoction she has been feverishly creating from the minibar. “Screw your mother.”

“You’d be amazed by how many people have said that to me,” I say. But underneath, I feel the clatter of dread. I push it away, determined—for once—not to care, not to let my mother ruin this night.

I sniff the drink, which smells even more awful than it looks, and then do a double take to make sure that wasn’t smoke I saw coming off of it. I wait until Zoey is out of sight before I pour it down the drain.

“I heard that,” she says from the bedroom.

I dry off and stare at my foggy reflection in the bathroom mirror. There is something hopeful and comforting about all the little shampoos and soaps lined up beside the sink, the soft hotel lighting, the occasional bursts of lively voices and high laughter moving down the hallway. I glance over at the dress hanging on
the door, pink and vulnerable as baby skin. All at once I wish like hell I’d bought something else.

I reach for my eye shadow. My hands haven’t stopped shaking since we left the dorm and I hate that. I don’t want to care, don’t want my mother to affect me. Just as I lean over the sink, Zoey barges back in. “Oooh, can I do your makeup?”

“Um . . . no,” I say into the mirror.

“Oh, come on! I promise I’ll do a good job. You may not know this about me, but when I was in high school I worked the cosmetics counter at a very high-end department store. I may have been unjustly fired for spraying perfume in the face of a rude customer, but that’s beside the point. I promise you’ll look amazing.”

I look into the mirror and down at my shaking hands. Then I turn back to Zoey, whose eyes are shiny with eagerness. Before I can answer, she runs over and cranks up the hotel’s tinny clock radio and orders me to sit on the toilet seat while she pulls up a chair between me and the mirror. Zoey studies my face and then roots around in my makeup bag for what she needs. Soon she is pulling out pots of color, shaking her head yes or no to each item as if they are speaking to her. For the first time in perhaps her entire life, she is completely quiet. She pulls her chair closer and stares at my face. She looks into my eyes, searching them.

“Stop looking at me like I’m made of glass,” I say. “I’m telling you I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she says, “okay.” Her brow wrinkles in concentration as she goes to work. Her fingers trace my cheeks and eyes gently, maternally, and I have a sudden nervous urge to laugh. I fight it lest I get stabbed in the eye with blue eyeliner, but the more
the laughter sits there pushing against my closed lips, the more hysterical it feels, like it could split off into tears at any moment. I bite my teeth and make myself stop laughing, seek the mask of icy resolve I have come to rely on staring back at me in the mirror. But something has changed in me, and all I see is the water moving underneath.

“Don’t forget to use concealer,” I say, “and at least two coats of masca—”

“Zip it,” she says, angling her chair so I can’t see past her. “You’re going to look great.” Which only makes me panic.

An entirely too-quick fifteen minutes later, she stops and sits back. Her eyes move slowly back and forth across my face. A solemn look comes over her. “My God,” she says.

“What?” I say nervously.

“I’m a genius. An honest-to-God genius.”

I stand up and look hopefully in the mirror. My face is practically bare. “No way in hell! You’re out of your mind.” I grab for my makeup bag, but she bats my hand away.

“You are not touching my masterpiece.”

“Seriously. Give it. I can’t wear just this.” I reach for the bag again, but she fakes to the left and dodges out of the bathroom, waving my makeup case like a captured flag in her hand.

I run after her, chasing her around the room. She laughs and screams as I lunge for her, but I am not finding this remotely funny. Finally she stops running and turns, revealing a guilty face and empty hands.

“Where is it? Stop screwing around! I’m serious!”

“I know!
Way
too serious!”

“Zoey!” She doesn’t understand that this isn’t some little joke to me, that my very survival feels at stake.

She grabs my arm and pulls me back into the bathroom and pushes me in front of the mirror. “Look,” she says. “Look how pretty you are.”

I resist looking. I think of the hospital, how every time Dr. Meeks would try to make someone talk about their problems in group therapy, James would get very serious and say, “I think the problem with everyone here is that we’re all looking into a distorted mirror.” Then he and I would crack up laughing because, of course, mirrors in mental hospitals cannot be made with sharps like glass and are therefore warped and fuzzy.

“Please,” I say to Zoey.

“Okay, listen,” she says. “If you can’t trust what you see in the mirror, how about trusting what you see here.” She points to herself. “I’m your best friend in the world and I would never mislead you.” Our eyes meet for a second and the words
best friend
land in some soft place I didn’t even know was there.

“Fine,” I say. “Can I at least have my lipstick?”

She sighs and goes and gets me my lipstick. “Be sparing,” she says. “Chris doesn’t want to kiss a stick of Maybelline.”

I put an extra-thick coat on my lips and then dab it onto my cheeks to double as a blush. “Ha!” I say as I watch her face in the mirror. It’s still way less than I usually wear, but it’s enough to make me feel better.

“Jerk,” Zoey says, and rolls her eyes. “Now let’s go downstairs. I’m sure your boyfriend is already down there looking for you.”

“He’s not my—”

“Yeah, yeah. Screw your mother.”

• • •

The elevator opens onto the hotel lobby, which is teeming with girls in dresses and guys in suits moving at various paces toward the ballroom. Their faces are shiny with excitement as they move stiffly in their formal clothes, reminding me of those toy soldiers at Christmas with their rosy cheeks and wooden bodies. Lights twinkle from the chandeliers, and the crowd is an animated murmur of voices, occasionally interrupted by laughter. The energy is contagious.

Zoey grabs my wrist. “You look amazing,” she says in my ear. Then she adds, “As do I,” which makes me laugh enough to settle my nerves.

“You really do,” I say. “You are stunning and you don’t even have to try.”

She turns and throws her arms around me and squeezes me tight, and before I can register the shock of being hugged, she lets go and we enter the ballroom. The party is already in full swing, although for a formal dance, hardly anyone seems to be dancing.

“Whatever you do, don’t leave me,” I say.

I surreptitiously scan the room for Chris while Zoey zeroes in on the food table like a hunter to a moose.

“Oh my GOD!” she says as she drags me by the wrist, beelining for a chocolate fondue fountain rimmed with fruits to dip. “If you can’t find me at the end of the night, I’ll probably be doing laps in this.”

“Helloooo, ladies.” Some random guy lurches toward us, a flask tucked inside the waist of his pants. He steps right up to Zoey and peers into her eyes. “You have the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen,” he slurs. “Wanna dance?”

“Oh Jesus,” she says. “My eyes are green. And you’re depressing me.”

“Is that a no?”

“Is that a bald spot?”

He shrugs and then turns to me. “You have the most beautiful green eyes I’ve ever seen.”

I hear someone clear their throat behind me and Zoey says, “Hi, Chris.” I instantly regret dumping that stiff drink down the drain. I turn and there he is, looking somehow taller and older in his button-down and black pants, although there is still that boyishness behind his eyes, like he’s embarrassed to be dressed up.

“Wow,” he says, standing back to look at me.

“Doesn’t she look pretty?” Zoey says.

He nods and blushes, and for one moment I truly feel pretty, actually believe that I am, or at least that I am to somebody.

“You have the most beautiful green eyes I’ve ever seen,” he says with a fake slur. “Wanna dance?”

I laugh, and he grabs my hand and tugs me toward the dance floor.

“Woohoo!” Zoey calls.

“No! Please!” I say, resisting like a stubborn dog on a leash. “I can’t!”

He drags me to the middle of the room where a smattering of couples are dancing with each other and a group of random drunk
girls are dancing with themselves.

“See! It’s way too early. Hardly anyone is dancing yet. And seriously, I’m the worst.”

“Shh.” He puts his hands around my waist and pulls me close.

I glance around, certain that I will embarrass myself somehow.

“Relax,” Chris says. “No one is looking.”

Reluctantly I put my hands on his shoulders, and then wonder if that’s where I’m even supposed to put them. I look around at other couples to be sure. We start to move, sort of swaying side to side, and I’m like a lumbering elephant the way I can’t get in time to the music, don’t quite know what to do with my feet.

“Stop trying to lead,” Chris whispers with a laugh, and I cringe with humiliation. Just as I’m about to break free and run off the dance floor, he pulls me closer against him. The smell of his cologne surrounds me and his strong shoulder is nice against my cheek. I want to pull away, but even as I do, some long-buried part of me, tender and aching for touch, awakens, makes me want to move closer.

“Now you’re getting it,” he says.

Encouraged, I start to breathe, to relax a little bit, to forget the other people in the room and my mother and all that has led up to this night. We rock back and forth, and after a while the awkwardness starts to fade, lulled out of me by the music and the swaying. The song changes, and changes again, until I stop hearing the changes at all; the tempo, whether fast or slow, becomes irrelevant to us, the music retreating into background noise. I become aware only of the rough cloth of Chris’s jacket against my cheek, of the tender and perplexing act of being pressed gently against another
human being, wanted close. Chris rubs his hands up and down my back and the nerve endings on my skin come alive, raw and reaching after a lifetime of not being touched or held. I can feel my breath deepening, my defenses coming down despite myself.

“Let’s go outside,” he says, and then he is leading me off the dance floor and I am following blindly, hardly aware of my surroundings or myself. We step out onto the terrace and the sudden cool air is like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, and I remember myself, remember that I don’t know how to do this thing I’m doing.

I look back into the ballroom, scan the crowd for Zoey. Chris pulls me toward the railing of the balcony, which overlooks the ocean. He stands beside me and I stare down into the black, breathing sea, giving him my profile so that he won’t try to kiss me. I can feel him watching me, until finally it becomes rude for me to keep avoiding his eyes.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” I say, even as I know that to speak is to ruin the moment.

He doesn’t answer, just turns to face me and puts his hand on the small of my back, guiding me toward him. My breath catches and my heart pumps and booms like the ocean. He slides his hand to the back of my neck.

I want to run.

I don’t want to run.

His hand moves to my cheek, fingertips in my hair. I start to speak. He leans down and touches his lips against mine.

The sounds of the party and the ocean bleed together until there is no sound at all. My mind quiets too, moves to a place
where there is no fear, no worry that I don’t know how to do this, because I am doing it and it’s natural and right and so perfect I can’t stand it.

My mother was definitely wrong,
I think.
He does like me.
I can be liked. The thought abruptly pulls me out of the moment, feels dangerous somehow, full of expectation.

“I have to find Zoey,” I say, pulling away, realizing I’ve been gone too long—both from her and from myself.

Chris follows me inside and there is Zoey, not far from where I left her, only now she is chatting with Murph, whom, if her signature hair-twirling move is any indication, she appears to like again. At least for the night.

I smile and move eagerly toward her the way a kid might race to their mother after a carnival ride—excited to have ventured out, relieved to be returning to their secure base.

“There you are! I was just about to go finish off the shallow end of the chocolate fountain.”

I’m shocked to discover how quickly the night is passing, how completely I have lost track of time.

“Holy shit, is the band playing Creed right now?” Zoey says. “I think that may be our cue to leave.”

“I could go for room service,” I say, thinking I’d like nothing better than to get out of here before anything can ruin this perfect night.

Chris offers to escort me upstairs.

“Well, hold on, you’re coming, right, Zo?” I say.

“I’ll be up in two seconds,” she says, and then looks over at Murph like she’s sizing up a piece of chocolate-covered fruit.

“Promise?” I say, nodding my head toward Murph.

“Promise!” she says with an eye roll. “Order me a burger.”

• • •

Chris and I step into the too-bright elevator, which reminds me of how little makeup I’m wearing. The doors close and suddenly it occurs to me that we are alone in this climbing box with no windows, no escape. I re-press the button to the sixth floor even though it’s already glowing. The doors open and I speed-walk ahead of him to my room, sobering up, though I never had a drink.

“Well . . .” I say when we reach my door, “that was fun.” I try to make a quick exit into my room but the magnetic key won’t work. Chris takes it from me and slides it into the lock. It instantly releases.