The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (10 page)

I was part of it all and not part of it, as
always. Part of it because there were kids I liked, such as Melanie and Liz and
Ali and Evan (who we call King Tut because he once wore this metallic-gold
shirt), and teachers I liked--fane Aston (art class, who never marked me late
for class, even if I got there ten minutes past bell because of work), Mr.
Fetterling (American Government). Not part of it because I couldn't care less
about prom and rah-rah shit like that, and because there were these rituals and
rules I just didn't
get,
things I was supposed to be interested in that I
wasn't, like who was going out with who and like those magazines with makeup
tips and who-gives-a-shit articles. "What does your favorite nut say about you?
Take our quiz! If you like almonds, you're the romantic type ..." Yeah. When you
want what's
real

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and you try to find that in high school, you
might as well be looking for a mossy rock beside a babbling brook on the corner
of Sixth and Pine in downtown Seattle.

I didn't get things and people didn't get me,
ever since the ninth grade. I went to this concert, and the chick at the door
stamped my hand with what was supposed to be a sun. She'd probably just OD'd on
coffee--her shaky hand gave me a crappy ink mark with only five solar rays in
the exact shape of a marijuana leaf. I was Lady Macbeth trying to scrub that
thing off. But the dyes they'd used sunk so deep they'll probably give us all
cancer in thirty years. Anyway, ever since then, people decided that my unique
clothing choices plus the design on my hand equaled STONER, and the closest I'd
ever gotten to dried herbs was my mother's oregano. I'm sure no one would even
remember that mark specifically, but it never went away in people's minds, which
just goes to show how badly we have the need to sort people into groups and keep
them there. It's some twisted, limited, grocery-store mentality, where people
have to be dairy products or vegetables or frozen foods for us to be able to
understand them and feel safe. Maybe we've just become such mega-consumers that
we can't deal with anything that's slightly inconvenient (basically, anything
that requires thought). I was the tofu amidst the Baking Products and Cleaning
Supplies.

Anyway, that day I'm having what I consider to
be a regular school day. My schedule is pretty light; the only truly sucky part
of the semester is that I have to take PE as a senior, because I couldn't stand
the idea of taking it as a freshman, or as a sophomore, or as a junior. I'd
backed myself against the take-it-or-don't-graduate wall, and now I was in there
with a bunch of freshmen and Mr. Talbot, who was only a few years older than us
and hadn't

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gotten the news flash yet that he was still the
dumb jock he was back in high school. He occasionally tried to be a real teacher
and gave us tests on basketball that you could take with your eyes closed.
Bouncing a ball in basketball is called (A) Dribbling. (B) Bribbling. (C)
Passing.
He'd write something on the chalkboard, step back and squint at it,
because the word "didn't look right," that favorite old cover of people who
can't spell.

That day, we spend the period sitting on the
gym floor in our PE clothes, as Mr. Talbot tries to figure out how he's going to
get five volleyball teams to play on four courts in a rotation lasting two
weeks. It's a bit like watching a chimp try to macramé, and beats actually
getting sweaty and stinking for two periods afterward. At lunch, I think about
sitting with Melanie, but she's hanging out on the front lawn with Heather Green
and Amelia Swensen, and Amelia's boyfriend, Jay. Not only are they likely to
give me crap about my clothes or something equally as important (they will use
the word "interesting" to describe what I'm wearing, and we all know that to
most people, "interesting" is not a compliment), but I don't especially want to
watch Jay with his hands practically up Amy's shirt right there on the front
lawn. So I decide to go with Ali and Liz, who are walking to Starbucks. I hate
to spend my hard-earned money on expensive coffee when I get it free at
Carrera's, but it's either that or go back and join the audience of Feel-Up
Fest, and darn, I forgot my ticket.

I finish up with American Government and the
Gettysburg Address, which is 2265 Alder Street, in case you want to send a
postcard, ha-ha. I walk home and I pass QFC, where Bex is already there with her
table and new, large sign that says please help the homeless and, in smaller
letters, tsunami victims. Underneath, she's drawn an unhappy face, two dots for
eyes and

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a half-circle mouth pulled down. Her bike rests
against a display of bags of bark and potting soil that's out front. I put a
couple of bucks into her can and ask her if Mom knows where she is, and she says
yeah, and that Mom thinks it's better than her hanging out with that Lindsey,
who's always getting her into trouble. This is just one of those annoying and
unjust differences between you and your younger sibling, because the only place
I could ever ride my bike alone was the end of the driveway. I was probably
fifteen before I could go to a friend's without giving Mom an FBI dossier on the
people; Bex can practically hitchhike on the freeway with a mere "Have fun,
honey."

At home, Severin is there, which is pretty
unusual. He's in the front yard, and he's mowing. I'm thinking Mom should get
mad more often, because the chores are really starting to get done around here.
The lawn mower is roaring, and I can't hear a word Severin's saying but I see
his mouth moving, and I scream "Whaat?" and he tries to scream back, and we do
that routine once or twice before he lets the engine cut out and it's suddenly
quiet.

"Jane called," he says. "She wants you to call
back as soon as you can."

"Okay," I say.

"She said it was really important."

Which probably meant she wanted me to work late
tomorrow, which would mess up Trevor's and my plan to hang out at Pine Lake and
swim. "What are you doing home? Did they finally come to their senses and fire
you?"

"Nah. MuchMoore is having sales conferences for
a few days, so they let us off early." He raises his arm, wipes the sweat from
his forehead. There are big rings of sweat under his arms.

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"What's with guys and sweat, for God's sake?
You're, like, leaking."

"Get me a glass of water, would
you?"

"What, my T-shirt says 'Personal Slave'? Forget
it. You gonna give me a tip?" But I actually do go inside, and I get a glass of
water and even get the tray of ice and give it a twist, chase some ice cubes
around the countertop to put into his glass. He's my brother, my twin, and even
though we don't do the twin-bond-till-death routine, we've been around for the
same length of time so we're there for each other. From the kitchen window I can
see him yank the lawn mower to life again by its string. He's wearing this grin.
It's this inner-pleased that seems to be about something more than the happy
that comes from the smell of cut grass.

I slam out the screen door. "Let this be the
end of your macho bullshit," I say, and hand him the glass. He cuts the engine
again.

"Thanks." He drinks. His Adam's apple shoots
from penthouse to lobby and back again.

"What are you so happy about?" I
ask.

"What? Nothing."

"Yeah. Right. I saw you smiling from the
kitchen. God, see? Look, you can't help yourself."

"Quit it." He wipes his mouth with the back of
his hand.

"You are. Aha, you're smiling. Look at you
smiling," I sing.

"Shit," he says, and tries not to grin. "Why do
you always do that?"

"Why are boys so secretive?"

"It's nothing. Get your hands off your hips.
You look like Mom." He drinks more water, peeks at me over the glass. "Oh, all
right. Okay, are you pleased with yourself? I asked Kayleigh Moore to our
prom."

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My sweaty brother is standing before me,
hopeful on a hopeful day. The sun is out--birds are twittering. Okay, birds
aren't actually twittering, but there's a crow on a branch of a nearby
evergreen, cawing at Freud, who sits calmly on our porch step, staring with sly
killer eyes. That hope, it's worrisome. It's Snow White type hope, where she's
tra-la-la-ing in the forest and not realizing that (1) her stepmother is
plotting her death by fruit, and (2) seven short guys who want to live with you
is just sick.

"You what?" I say.
"Kayleigh
Moore-Kayleigh Moore? Or a different Kayleigh Moore?"

"No, that one. What's the problem, Indigo?
Jeez. You're acting like I asked out the president's daughter."

"Well, you did, you idiot. Of your
company."

"That's not what I meant. And you don't have to
be concerned. She said yes."

Freud gets up, stretches, steps to the lawn and
plops onto the grass. Closer to that evergreen tree. He's got one eye on that
crow the whole time. His tail twitches.

"Oh, man."

"It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be great. Here."
He hands me the water glass, but I put my hands up. Forget it, Bud.

"And she goes to what, Riverside?" The private
school for gajillionaire kids. I once heard that they're required to each have
their own laptop, and get lunch catered from local restaurants. "It's not like
you're going to be able to give her a carnation and drive her in Mom's car. What
do you see in a girl like that?" I saw her once, when I picked up Severin from
work. The lasting image was her T-shirt, which read: this is what a perfect 10
looks like. That, and her smile. Row of teeth in a perfect line, like the white
deck chairs on a cruise ship.

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"She's not 'a girl like that.' First off, she's
gorgeous."

"Not that you're shallow or anything." I decide
I want that glass after all. I take it from him, have a long swallow of what is
left of the water. It is getting hot out here. Maybe from the sudden desert
drought of
real.

"She's more down-to-earth than you
think."

I almost choke on the ice cube rolling around
in my cheek. A spiky, ugly feeling is starting in my chest. Some kind of green,
creeping sense of them-us, of protection. This cold sense of a power game one is
sure to lose. Is it jealousy I feel? I'm not sure, but if it is, I'm fucking mad
at myself for feeling it for someone I already have little respect for.
Here's what a perfect ten looks like.
Maybe I want what she has without
wanting to be what she is.

I watch smug Freud and the nervous crow. I hate
crows, I detest crows. They are sleek and crafty and mean. They are the sinister
type of sixth-grade boy who makes fun of the quiet kid, and who knows what all
the dirty words mean. Crows leer. But right now, it is Freud who I want to put
in his place.

"Remember when Bex was, like, four, and she cut
off Freud's whiskers?" I say to Severin.

"Oh, man, that was sad," Severin says, and
laughs. "She thought she would make them 'even.'"

"He kept bumping into walls," I say.

I can't explain this. But I am hoping Freud is
listening.

Severin starts the lawn mower again, and I go
inside to call Jane. She's not at Carrera's, so I try her cell phone number.
When I reach her, her voice is almost breathless.

"Indigo! You won't believe what happened after
you left!"

"Trina sold her car."

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"No! It has nothing to do with Trina. It has
something to do with you ..."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You."

"Uh-oh. The guy from
America's Most
Wanted
came in. They finally found me. Oh, no, wait. A Hollywood agent saw
my yearbook picture. Ha! And I thought it sucked." I am just cackling away at
myself when I finally realize there's that endless, cave-deep silence that means
Jane's cell phone cut out. It's always so suddenly lonely when that
happens.

I call her back, but her line's busy, because
she's calling
me
back, and we do that annoying call me-call you dance
that someone should have figured out a social rule for long ago.

"Sorry, I was going through a tunnel," she
says. I can tell she's in her car. The sound is all whooshing air, some distant
between-channel static. I've got to strain to hear as her voice jumps through
the hoops of satellites and sonar waves and tin cans with string to get to
me.

"You missed all my great jokes."

But she's too excited to bother with my
award-winning humor. "The Vespa guy," she breathes. "Goddamned asshole!" she
growls. For a moment I'm confused--the Vespa guy is pretty nice, actually. Then
I realize I'm being treated to something that would have been inconceivable in
the pre-cell phone days: the play-by-play
You Are There!
of someone's
driving experience. This is a different episode from the
You Are There!
of someone's grocery store experience, and usually more exciting.
(I'm
passing the yogurt. Do we need yogurt? What about eggs?)
"Jerk just cut me
off," Jane says.

"The Vespa guy," I remind.

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"Yeah, well, he came in. Back in. After he
left. After you left. He brought you something, Indigo. An envelope. Was he
supposed to bring you something?"