Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (12 page)

Crap. I was obviously going to have to make my peace with Damon if Birdie was going to go all heartbreaky on me.

“Well, maybe if you
asked
him not to leave the candy bars out instead of
telling
him. You’re not the president of the apartment, you know.”

“God, I’m horribly difficult to live with, aren’t I? I said I’d walk Noodles hours ago, but I wanted to listen to my new CD first, and then I got a couple of phone calls, and . . . Damon probably hates me now. And he’s so sweet, don’t you think, Marisol?”

“Sweet as tooth decay,” I said. And, obviously, just as hard to get rid of.

“You have a couple of messages on the machine,” Birdie said when we got back to the apartment. He went for the pine-scented cleaner while I punched play. I figured one of them would be from Lee, who probably felt remorseful about yelling at me by the time she walked home. But no, nothing from Lee.

“Uh, hi. This is Gio. I hope it’s okay that I called. I’m kind of having a problem doing the writing assignment this week. You know, about the setting. It’s hard to describe someplace you haven’t actually been. But I’m afraid this means I can only write about Boston or Darlington, Massachusetts. Anyway, I thought you might have some thoughts about it. Call me if you have time.”

Great! Gio wanted to talk about writing, the topic which had bonded us to begin with. I figured I’d call him back right away, until I heard message number two, delivered in a low, slow voice.

“Hello, Marisol. This is Olivia. I’ve been thinking about you. How about meeting me for breakfast Saturday morning before class starts? I have an appointment in the afternoon, so I won’t be able to have lunch, and I want to see you. Call me.”

Birdie, of course, was eavesdropping. “I just have two questions,” he said. “First of all, you’re seeing
Gio
again? Are you insane? Do you not remember what happened last time? And secondly, who the hell is this Olivia, and is she as hot as she sounds?”

“Yes to all of the above,” I said, then took the cordless phone into my room and closed the door.

I called Olivia first because just hearing her voice made my stomach flip, and I wasn’t sure I could speak to anybody
else until I’d made contact with her. But she wasn’t home, so I had to leave a message in my own unique tongue: Angstlish.

“Hey! Hi, Olivia. This is Marisol. I got your message, so I’m calling back, but you aren’t there. Anyway, thanks again for the beautiful necklace, which I’ve been wearing every day. Well, most days, anyway. So, yes, I would love to meet you for breakfast on Saturday before class. Should we meet at the Center or somewhere else? The Center is fine, or wherever you want. And I’m really looking forward to class, too—God, can you hear that loud sucking noise? I’m going to shut the hell up now because I sound like a fricking moron.”

By the time I put the phone down, my armpits were swampy and my knees had come unglued. What the hell? I never acted this dorky! Just because Olivia was older and brilliant and my teacher and looked like she should be cast in a Pedro Almodóvar movie . . . I had to rest for ten minutes or so until I had the strength to call Gio.

Thank God that was easy. He launched right into his problem with the assignment.

“Maybe the problem is that I’m not actually writing a novel,” he said, sighing. “I’m just doing the assignments to stir up ideas for a story or something. But I really don’t want to write about Darlington, Massachusetts. I’m there too many hours during my actual life; I don’t want to spend my imaginary time there too.”

“There must be some other places you know well enough to use. Some place you’ve visited that you remember.”

“My parents took one vacation before they got divorced, and it was a total disaster. We went to a dude ranch in
Wyoming, and my mother fell off a horse the first day and broke her arm. We stayed all week, though, so Dad could get in all the ridin’ and ropin’ he’d paid for. Mom sat on the porch trying to knit one-handed. I stayed inside the cabin and read comic books.”

“Well, that’s not too promising, since it sounds like you didn’t actually
see
much of Wyoming.”

“Nope.”

“It’s a good story, though. You ought to write it up anyway. Not for class, just for your zine.”

“Yeah, maybe I will. But I still need a place to describe for the exercise. What are you writing about?”

“Cambridge. The novel will be set there and in Boston.”

“That’s convenient.”

“You could use Boston too, couldn’t you? The Back Bay, where your dad lives. All those old brownstones with the tidy little yards—there are some mighty metaphors hiding in that landscape.”

“Wait! I’ve got it! I know what I can write about!” Gio all but screamed.

“And it is . . .”

“Provincetown! It’ll be easy—there’s no place like it, right? All the funny little ancient houses crowded together on the main street, the smell of the bay and the fishing boats, the bars, the crazy crowds. That’s it!”

Of course I remembered it all too. I’d been fascinated to walk into that gorgeous gay mecca, but I hadn’t been able to fully enjoy it because of the achy knot in my chest. I’d been determined to make it clear to Gio that weekend that we were
never going to be more than just friends, even if it hurt him so much that he couldn’t actually
be
my friend anymore. It had been a memorable trip, but not an easy one.

“I should’ve thought of it sooner,” he continued. “Did I tell you I’m going down there the Saturday after this one to see Diana for the weekend? She lives in Truro, but we’ll go into Provincetown to go dancing and hang out.”

That was the weekend I’d planned to go down to the Cape with Lee, Birdie, and Damon. Now Gio was going to be there too? What lousy timing. I should have just told him right then that I was going too, but I thought about it a few seconds too long and the obvious moment to say something passed. Maybe he didn’t need to know. It was a small town, but always crowded—what were the chances we’d bump into him? And if he knew I was going to be there, he’d feel like we should all meet up or something, and that would be too awkward. Birdie would make some poisonous remark, and ugh, I could just see the entire weekend going to hell in a hand-basket for all of us.

“Are you taking the boat or the bus?” I asked.

“Bus, I guess.”

“Well, have a great time!” I said, wondering just how expensive boat tickets could be and who was going to spring for the four we needed.

S
INCE
I
DIDN’T HAVE TO WORK
the next day, I slept later than usual and was just getting out of the shower when the doorbell rang. Birdie and Damon, who seemed to have patched up their candy bar conflict, had already left for class, so I wrapped a towel around myself and called downstairs on the intercom to see who it was.

“It’s me, Lee.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “I’ll buzz you in.”

I had intended to call her after my shower, but here she was, the little truant. She must have cooled off since the afternoon before. I was glad to be able to sort out the problem now so I’d still have most of the day free to write.

I unlatched the apartment door, tucked the towel in a little tighter around my chest, and waited for her to trudge up the stairs. She looked up at me as she climbed, her face blank and not entirely friendly. She took in my state of undress and looked back down at the stair treads.

“I guess you don’t get up as early as I do,” she said. “I walked around for an hour or so.”

“I just slept in a little this morning.” I closed the door behind her.

“I had to leave the house when my sister did so she’d think I went to school. I figured it was easier to just skip the whole day.”

“Right.” I wasn’t falling into that trap again—skip school if you want to, no skin off my nose. We stood there looking and not looking at each other for an uncomfortable minute.

Finally I said, “Have you had breakfast yet?” hoping that didn’t sound too maternal.

She shook her head. “I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

I bit my tongue to staunch my usual lecture on the health benefits of having a good meal in the morning. “Let me go get dressed and I’ll scramble us some eggs. You can start a pot of coffee if you want. Coffee and filters are in the cupboard over the coffeemaker.” I motioned her toward the kitchen.

“I haven’t . . . I guess I don’t know how to make coffee.” She sounded so defeated, as though failure as a barista were the last straw. Of course,
I
thought being able to brew a decent cup of coffee was a necessary life skill, but it wasn’t on the final exam or anything.

“It’s easy,” I said. “Fill the pot to the eight-cups mark, which will really only make enough for about four decent-sized mugs, and pour it into the water receptacle. There’s a scoop in the coffee—put four healthy scoops into the filter you’ve put into the filter basket. Close it up, turn it on, wait three minutes: coffee.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

I headed into my bedroom to figure out what to wear to accidentally run into Olivia later in the day, assuming she
showed up at Starbucks again. I didn’t want to look like I’d dressed for a date, but I didn’t want to look too cruddy either—and the choices were limited.

Lee, I noticed, was in her usual cloak of invisibility: jeans and white T-shirt with a jean jacket thrown over the top against the morning chill. Staring at myself in the mirror, I was grateful to have spent very little of my lifetime thus far worrying about clothes—it was much too frustrating. I put on my black work pants; they were not the cleanest, but I could dab at the spots of dried tuna salad and spilled coffee to make them a little more respectable. I had a brickred T-shirt that looked good under my black and white flannel shirt—the combination seemed like an outfit that didn’t absolutely scream,
I dressed especially for you,
but neither did it say,
I don’t give a shit what I look like.

Finally, I put the amber pendant on and took it off again half a dozen times, then left it on my dresser top so that Lee wouldn’t feel stung by its appearance.

When I walked into the kitchen, Lee was sitting at the table with a mug of heavily milked coffee in front of her into which she was ladling spoonfuls of sugar. I couldn’t help flashing back to last spring, when I’d forced Gio to drink coffee and he too sugared and milked it into something more closely resembling coffee ice cream.

“God, I just remembered—you drink tea, not coffee. I’m such a bully,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Lee said. “It’s pretty good this way.”

No lecture from me on how the only way to drink coffee is black. I poured myself a dark cup. “Not bad for your first
attempt,” I told her, though it was definitely weaker than I’d have made it myself.

I checked the fridge and found three eggs and one lone marble bagel. “Do you want scrambled eggs? Or I could make you an over easy, whichever.”

“Scrambled is fine,” Lee said.

“One bagel left—you want to split it?”

“Sure.” She squirmed in her chair, and I had the feeling she was trying to say something and I wasn’t giving her the opportunity. So I shut up and started the scrambling process, sliced the bagel, got two plates out of the cupboard, and pretended she wasn’t even there. Finally she assembled the words in her mouth.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I was being a brat again.”

She waved her hand as if to shush me. “No, you weren’t. I just . . . I just get so homesick sometimes, I can’t stand it. It feels like I’ve lost my whole world and it’s my own fault. I’ve been transplanted into this foreign place, and nothing will ever be the same. My feelings seep out and discolor everything, like bruises. Even my food tastes sour.”

Wow. I was suddenly kind of impressed with Lee. I guess it was the first time I thought of her as someone other than just a needy kid, a lost soul who I could help. This was obviously someone who wrestled with her emotions and scrutinized the consequences of her actions the same way I did.

“I feel like you don’t even know the real Lee O’Brien,” she continued. “The person I was back in Indiana. I’m different here. I’m alone, I’m lonely, and that makes me feel awful and
act terrible. I was more fun back at home! People liked me!”

“I’m sure people liked you in Indiana,” I told her. “You’re fun
here
. I don’t think you’re the pathetic person you think you are.”

But she didn’t agree. “You don’t know. I’m different now. I’m gray, I’m glum, I’m . . . invisible.”

That shook me a little, since “invisible” was indeed how I often thought of Lee, but I certainly wouldn’t tell her that. “Look, you’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last month or so. You came out to your family and friends. You moved halfway across the country, started a new school. Of course you feel different, but inside you’re still the same person you’ve always been. I think you’re too impatient. Give yourself time to adjust.”

She sighed. “Well, I don’t have much choice, do I?”

I sprinkled the eggs with pepper, oregano, and Parmesan cheese. “Wait’ll you taste my eggs,” I said. “That’ll cheer you up.”

“You do cheer me up,” she said. “You’re the only one who does.”

Oh, dear. Were we entering dangerous territory again?

“Next time you see Birdie, ask him how cheerful I am to live with. I think he’ll give you a second opinion.” I plopped the bagel slice and half the eggs on a plate and set it in front of her. “Now, eat up,” I demanded, impersonating a crotchety cowpoke.

I worked hard to get the conversation on a lighter plane. By the time we finished eating we’d discussed the best and worst meals our mothers had ever cooked; the half dozen
hamsters Lee had had growing up, all of which lived exactly one year; swimming lessons at age nine (hers); dancing lessons at age five (mine); and my history with Birdie, up to and including the pooped-on red shag rug. Lee perked up, and I began to see the funny, friendly person whose disappearance she’d been worried about.