The Inside of Out (30 page)

“I'll take your advice under consideration.”

“Plus I'll be there, and I'll want one more interview.”

“I'll give you an exclusive,” I promised, and saw him beaming from the driver's seat as I made my reluctant way to my front door. Before I went inside, I watched him roll away, mentally mapping the distance—twenty yards, fifty yards, rounding the corner—like the numbers could rationalize away this twinge in my chest.

When I crept into the house, by some sort of miracle, my parents were still asleep. I made it up to my bedroom, tried without success to scrub the paint off my wrist and face and crawled into bed, exhausted to the point of thought-annihilation.

It seemed like I'd only closed my eyes for a second when a sound from downstairs jolted me awake.

Glass breaking. My father, screaming.

I fell out of bed and raced to the stairs just in time to see my mom sprint from her bedroom, equally terrified.

Did someone throw a brick through our window?

I was just about to yell “Call 911!” my feet thundering on the hardwood as I skipped the last three steps, when I caught sight of my parents standing in the living room. The windows were fine. The news was on. And a mug of coffee was shattered on the floor in front of Dad's feet.

“This is
our
Daisy?” He was pointing at the screen and yelling. “They're talking about
our
Daisy on
Morning Joe
?”

“Still?
Ugh
.” Mom crouched to clean up the mess with a dustpan and brush.

“‘Still'?” Dad's face went crimson. “How long have they been . . . ?”

He caught sight of me and his face returned to sickly white.

I waved. “How does he not know?”

Mom winced a smile and kept cleaning. “It's been a busy few weeks.”

“I knew there was a
club
you were in and . . . buh . . . guh . . . you were throwing a
party,
” Dad sputtered.

“All accurate so far,” I said.

“I knew you were on the local news for it . . .” He waved wildly to the corner of the living room where we'd taped the Shawna Wells interview.

“Oh dear,” Mom said quietly.

“I didn't know they were talking about it all over the goddamn country!” He turned and pointed three times at the TV. “And is that Cindy Beck?”

“Ugh,” Mom repeated. “Yes.”

I crept closer for confirmation. Yep, there she was in her cute pastel sweater set, sitting on a round sofa with the morning show hosts like they were old pals.

“More than anything, it's
sad,
” she was saying. “I'm
sad
to see what's happening to this country.”

The female anchor leaned over and touched her hand. I had to turn away to keep from vomiting.

“Do I need to go and have words with Walter?” Dad's chest was doing its best to puff.

“No,”
Mom and I said together, but she had this look in her eye like she and Dad were going to start making out the second I left the room.

“You know . . .” Cindy Beck's tittering laughter rang out over the chatter of the hosts. “I really believe they are going to wind up being hoisted by their own petards.”

We all stared at the screen.

Mom was the first to laugh. “Did she just—?”

“That can't be how you pronounce that.” I let out a giggle.

“Pee-tards,” Dad said. “Pee. Tards.”

“Can you fill him in?” I whispered to Mom, ducking back into the hallway. “I'm going back to bed.”

She nodded, but Dad jogged up the stairs to intercept me just as I pulled up the covers.

“Daisy.” He leaned against the doorway, huffing from the climb. “I've been thinking and—I'm gonna take some time off from consulting. A month. Mom and I are going to draw up a business plan, get the ball rolling on some new ideas, but . . . mostly I'm going to be around. And, ah . . .” He scratched his stubble. “Paying better attention. Whenever you want to talk about anything—I'm here. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” I said, smiling, then tugged the covers all the way over my head as the door shut quietly behind him.

Sure, he was here. Today, anyway. Maybe even for the next full month—until he poured himself into creating the next great imaginary universe and forgot all about the real one again, along with all the people populating . . .

Startled, I blinked alert, staring at the tiny pinpricks of sunlight sifting through my comforter.

Privilege?
I thought.

Maybe. Or maybe just a blessing I'd been too whiny to count. I had two parents who loved me. Who tried. Hannah didn't even
have
a father in her life, just a single parent in stubborn denial about what her daughter was going through. And then there was Natalie—with a harpy of a right-wing nut job mother currently holding court on Fox News, and a father who seemed to want to help but was painfully out of his depth.

I'd told him I would talk to her. Another grandiose promise.

Something dimly connected in my brain, off in the neural distance, some truth I couldn't bring into focus before sleep overtook me.

But when I woke up, I knew. It was mapped in my brain, a beacon to guide me into the murky future. The way to fix what had been broken in me for as long as I could remember. And it
wasn't
that mural.

Natalie lived four blocks away, which was probably one of the reasons we'd become friends in the first place—neighborhood proximity. But I hadn't so much as driven past her house in years.

I waited until an hour after school had ended, guessing she'd be home by then and praying her mother wouldn't be. When Natalie herself answered the door, my first reaction was relief, followed closely by confusion. She was wearing sweats. Her auburn hair was matted in a scraggly bun at the base of her neck. Flyaways galore. I almost didn't recognize her.

“Home sick?” I asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Pretending.”

“Ah.”

“You still suspended?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “You heard about that, then.”

Her mouth curled with something like appreciation. “Hot soup attack? Pretty badass.”

I felt a treacherous thrill from the compliment. “Sophie Goodwin did it. I just took the heat.”

“Oh.”

“I'm supposed to go back to school tomorrow, but I'm thinking I'll round out the week.”

“That's pretty much my plan,” Natalie said numbly.

We both stopped talking, mute witnesses as our fledging conversation twitched and died. Maybe this was enough, though? Maybe she'd just needed to see someone outside her immediate family and chitchat for twenty seconds and that would fulfill my obligation to her dad. I could just turn around now and—

“Wanna come in?” She leaned away from the door.

“Thanks, yeah, awesome.” My voice was so eager it made me want to slap myself. This might tie getting arrested as the stupidest thing I'd done this week.

It felt strange walking into her house. Some things were the same but seemed smaller, like the antique furniture in her formal living room, while others were factory-new. Her kitchen was brightly remodeled and there was a giant flat- screen on the wall of the family room where we'd once built a tent fortress that spread all the way into the hallway. I expected her to pause here, sit down on the sectional, but she trudged ahead of me up the steps, all the way to her bedroom.

When we were little, Natalie's room looked like the inside of a bag of Skittles. Now it was sleek monochrome, everything pale blue or off-white, like she'd paid someone to design it. It made me sad for her somehow.

She sat on the love seat under her window and motioned me to her plush desk chair.

“So . . .” I swiveled, unsure what the correct script was for check-in conversations you'd been pressured into having.
“How are things?” “Tell me about your feelings.” “What does this ink blot remind you of?”

“I know why you're here,” Natalie said.

“You do?” I asked, hoping she would fill me in.

“I've screwed all this up. I know. I just can't seem to stop.”

She covered her face roughly, like she was scrubbing herself off. When her hands relaxed into her lap, she looked different. She'd defrosted, somehow.

“What did you screw up?” I asked, then so as not to tip my hand, added, “I'd like to hear your side of it.”

“Coming out? Your . . . event?” She sighed. “Hannah. My mother's career. You name it, I've ruined it. I mean . . .
heh
. You helped.” She smiled sourly. “Pretending Hannah was your girlfriend, outing me on national television, making out with my ex-boyfriend in front of a million—”

“I did
not
make out with QB,” I cut in. “Not on purpose. I did do the first two things. Not really on purpose either.”

She grabbed an empty glass from her nightstand and raised it in a toast. “All hail the screw-ups. At least we make life interesting.”

She turned the glass over, scowled at it, put it down.

“Hey, so,” I started, examining my nails. “Speaking
of,
I did want to apolo—” Downstairs, the front door opened. I jumped from the chair, my eyes darting to the window in the hopes of finding a handhold for a second-story escape.

Natalie shook her head. “That's our housekeeper. Mom's in New York trying to convince everybody in the world to hate gay people.”

“Oh, right,” I said bleakly. “I saw her on MSNBC. Her outfit was really on point.”

“My mother can rock a twin set. I will give her that.”

I shook my head as I sank back into the chair. “Why is she doing this? Is she that mad at you?”

“Me?” Natalie cackled, tore the elastic from her hair, and shook her red mane loose. “Lord, no! I'm her perfect daughter. She's pretty pissed at you, though, for spreading all those lies about me on the evening news.”

“Why does she think they're lies?”

“Because I told her they were.” She pressed her lips together and looked at the floor, her hair wild around her face. “I told my parents I wasn't gay, that you had a vendetta against me and that's where the rumors came from.” She glanced up when I didn't answer. I was too stunned. “So, yeah. Sorry about that. Didn't really expect Mom to go even more ape-shit than before, but I guess I should have.”

I rolled closer. “But . . . you did come out. Right? I'm not imagining that.”

“To my
friends
.” The word was thick with irony. “And when that went—well, you saw how that went—I decided to hold off on telling my parents. My family is different from yours, Daisy. Your mom would throw a parade for you if she thought you were gay.”

“Probably,” I admitted.

“Meanwhile, my mom's gearing up to run for state senate as an ultra-super-duper conservative next year and I knew this would be, um, a
problem
. I tested her. Just in case. I said, ‘Hey Mom, you remember Daisy Beaumont-Smith? I heard she's gonna lobby the school board to allow same-sex dates at dances.' And she said . . .” Natalie held on to her knees, fighting tears. “She said, ‘That's disgusting.
Thank you
for bringing
this to me.'” She looked at the ceiling until her eyes cleared. “Sorry about that too, by the way.”

I shrugged in answer. What was done was done.

“Anyway, I thought maybe I could just get through high school and see Hannah in secret and get the hell out of here and
then
I could be myself? It was stupid.”

“Is that why you broke up with her?” I asked. “So you could stay in the closet?”

“Hannah dumped me. At the rally.”

I stared at her. “That was why you were crying? I saw you from the stage.”

“I was crying because of your speech. There you were, lying your ass off, but your lies were a million times braver than mine. I've never felt more like a coward than hearing you tell
my
story in front of hundreds of people. I mean, it wasn't brave for you. You had nothing to lose, except maybe Hannah—who everybody thought was
your
girlfriend. I was so mad. I thought . . . kiss her, hold her hand, do something, make it obvious that
you're
the one she's in love with, not Daisy. But I couldn't. I couldn't handle it. When you were done talking, I turned to Hannah and I told her we needed to stay a secret until college. And yeah. She broke it off.” At my sympathetic slump, Natalie shook her head. “I don't blame her. I was a total basket case the whole time we were together. I don't know why she even put up with me for as long as she did. I'm having a hard time putting up with myself at the moment. But I'm stuck with me.”

“Why not be stuck with the real you, then?” I stood, feeling smothered by the blanket of self-pity settling over both of us.
“Natalie, do you remember how we used to dare each other to do things around the neighborhood?” It hurt to bring this up. “I'd dare you to leave a Twinkie on the hood of the car next door. You'd dare me to ring the doorbell of that crazy ex-Marine dude.”

“I still can't believe you did that,” she muttered to her lap.

“Well, it's my turn again. I dare you to tell your parents the truth. Preferably before the weekend so your mom can call off the attack.”

Instead of immediately answering, Natalie watched me, searching for something in my face.

“Do you know why we stopped being friends?”

My breath went cold, frozen, shattering into shards. Why would she ask me this? And how did this girl still have the power to break my heart with a simple question?

She seemed to want an answer.

“Because I wasn't
cool enough
.” My voice was like gravel. “Because you hated me. Or I embarrassed you. All of the above.”

“No.” Her eyes grew sharp, intense, like she was about to challenge me to a duel. “No, Daisy. It was because I loved you.”

My mouth fell slack. Natalie had stopped making sense.

“I
loved
you,” she said, her voice wavering. “Told my parents I wanted to marry you. They thought it was cute until my mom started getting worried. Called in some Christian re-programmers posing as child psychologists. I thought I was taking art lessons back then, but while I was painting pictures of the two of us together in ballet costumes, they were diagnosing me as deviant. That's why Mom and Dad
took me away that summer, so they could get me away from you, tell me how girls loved boys, not other girls, how wrong those feelings were. And how
you
were the one who'd put all those wrong thoughts in my head. How something was wrong with you, not me. When we got back, I believed them. I just wanted so
desperately
to be normal. I didn't want anything to be wrong with me. So I stopped being friends with you.”

I'd had so many theories about why she'd dropped me. That she'd suffered brain damage after slipping on the deck of the cruise ship. That I'd said something horrible to her and then
I'd
slipped and gotten amnesia and forgotten it. That I was a freak all along, who nobody in their right mind would want to be friends with.

“Natalie loves me” had never been one of my theories.

“And the worst thing was . . .” Natalie laughed, her pinkie darting up to swipe the corner of her eye. She'd been biting her nails. “You didn't care. You didn't fight for me. You found a new best friend, like, the same day, and forgot all about me.”

“The same day?”

I gripped the back of the chair.

“Bad choice of words,” she muttered, but it was too late.

“Natalie, I made a friend—
one
friend—
two years later.
For two years, nobody would be friends with me. Nobody even talked to me at school except to tease me.”

“I never teased you,” Natalie blurted, then bit her lip, as if to take it back. “Well, okay, the stuttering thing.”

“Just that,” I said. “And then you outsourced the mockery to your new besties.”

“I didn't stop them,” Natalie murmured.

“Didn't stop them? You
told
people not to be friends with me. You think I don't know that? That it didn't get back to me? You told them to pick sides, and everybody picked you.”

Natalie didn't bother to deny it, so I went on, my throat stinging.

“Do you know that I didn't get invited to anyone's house in two years? Of course you know. You made sure of it. I
threw
a birthday party that nobody came to. After an hour of sitting there, waiting, my mom paid the DJ and the flamenco instructor—”

“Flamenco instructor?”

“And sent them home and took me to the movies to try to get me to forget. But I never did. How could I? That was my life, Natalie, because you declared war on me.”

“I know,” she said. “I was . . . what's the right word? An asshole, I guess.” She coughed a laugh. “I mean, I
am
an asshole. There's no denying it. I blamed you! For everything. But you know the sick thing?” She scratched her hair, making it even wilder. “I missed you. Like, all the time. I hated you, because you hated me, which I realize is not the most logical thing. But—I don't know. All along, I wished things had been different. That
I
could be different. That I hadn't gone off the deep end.” She turned away, like she couldn't admit it to my face. “I had my friends, or whatever, but . . . it was almost like I'd struck this bargain with myself that I would give them eighty percent. That was it. I'd be the same perfect fucking robot I was with my parents, my coaches, just . . . everybody.” Her eyes dimmed. “Until Hannah.”

I let silence settle over us as she turned to blink out the
window. Then, to my surprise, she looked right at me—and grinned.

“It's not like
either
of you is perfect. Hannah's crazy.”

My temper flared in Hannah's defense, a well-worn instinct, but Natalie had begun to glow.

“She's beyond neurotic,” she said tenderly. “She hates being stared at but she dresses like a J.Crew model, so of course everybody looks. She's terrified of conflict.
Cannot
handle it.”

Wow,
I thought.
That's spot on.
Why had I never registered it?

“She's so weird about that little notebook.”

I cracked a smile. “The Moleskine.”

“Yes
.
”
Natalie leaned forward, pointing at me.

“And the country music thing,” I put in.

“Yes! What is
with
that?” She laughed. “I can take it in small doses, but
every
time we're near a radio? And she quotes it like it's Shakespeare . . .”

Natalie's eyes met mine and darkened. I wondered for a second whether she was downloading our entire history in one sad blink. But by now I knew the truth.

This wasn't about me.

“You miss her.”

She swallowed like her throat was sore. Bit her thumb. Dropped it. “She's my best friend.”

And with those words, something I couldn't name broke from me, lifted, an exorcised demon.

Let her go,
I thought.
Let everybody go.