Outcast (5 page)

“Noelle, get a clue.” Her words were hiccups between sobs.

“About what?”

She remained silent, then turned to the mirror as if speaking to herself. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Is it too much to ask to want to be accepted? To be popular? To be a little bit like her?”

“I don’t want to be like her,” I said. “I hate her.

Grace rolled her eyes at her reflection.

“Why can’t you just be happy being yourself?” I asked.

“Because…” But a series of sobs completed her sentence.

I pushed the paper towels at her, but she let them flutter to the floor like broken butterfly wings.

She stared at me for a long time. I knew she wanted me to sympathize and support her every word, but I couldn’t. “Why don’t you go back to the dance and leave me alone?”

“So you can cry in here all night? No way.”

Her anger heated up. “Just go!”

I wanted to give her a hug, but for the first time she didn’t seem to want any part of it. I knew Grace craved popularity. But I didn’t understand her. She was being over-the-top. All I meant to do was help, and this was the treatment I received. I stormed away and returned to the dance. I really just wanted to go home.

The anger lodged in my throat. I couldn’t believe Grace—my best friend—would take things out on me. I wasn’t the one who made the comment. I wasn’t the one who showed up as
Chad
’s date. And I wasn’t the one who sent her to the bathroom crying.

I returned to the gym, hovering on the sidelines against the wall. Becca was hidden in a far corner, lip-locked with Carl. His hand slid over the cup of her bra. I wondered where the chaperones were when you needed them. Then I noticed Trina sidling up flirtatiously to
Chad
who stood without his date. She touched his arm while batting her mascara-coated eyelashes at him. What a slut!  Even though I stood there alone, my hatred for Trina kept me company. I conjured up thoughts of hurting her even more than she’d injured Grace. I imagined the humiliation she might feel if her dress, like snakeskin, was suddenly shed in front of the entire school. I pictured hacking her sun-bleached tresses away with gardening shears. I visualized stuffing her into one of the lockers in the darkened Phys-Ed changing room and leaving her there for the entire weekend. I plunged so deeply into my anger that I was unaware of the passage of time until a tap on my shoulder pulled me back to reality. It was
Chad
. I glanced right and left, sure that someone else must have wanted my attention, like the gym teacher or the janitor. I gaped, speechless. His eyes were warm and sweet.

“Noelle, right?”

I nodded, scraping to find my lost words.

“Wanna dance?”

Dance? He had to be kidding. Why would he want to dance with me? I looked around for his date, for Trina, for his laughing friends who dared him to ask me. No one was in sight. He shifted uncomfortably.

“What about your date?”

“She doesn’t care.” He noticed my puzzled look. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh.”

“So…you want to?”

I was so distracted by
Chad
actually talking to me that I lost track of my capacity to think.

“What?”

“Dance.” He smiled, apparently amused by my absent-mindedness.

I felt an obligation to go after Grace who was probably still hunkered down in the bathroom. But I really wanted to dance with
Chad
.

“Sure.”

As we slipped onto the dance floor, I expected a bucket of pig’s blood to spill on my head. But nothing like that happened.
Oxygen
by Colbie Caillat played. It felt surreal.
Chad
held me close, and I stared into the crescent moon of his neck. He smelled like a mixture of sweat and
Romance
. I danced with a boy one other time in grade school gym class, a forced episode of square dancing. This was different. In three minutes, I lost myself completely.
Chad
, a boy I didn’t even know, exercised hypnotic powers over me and mesmerized me with his charm.

As the music died, I noticed Trina’s eyes crawling all over me. I stayed near
Chad
, wanting Trina to wallow in her jealousy, mold-green and putrid.

“Thanks for the dance.”

I meandered off the dance floor. I expected
Chad
to return to his date or to find his friends and collect his bet money, but he followed me instead. Nervous, I glanced around for Grace. She was nowhere to be found.

“Can I call you sometime?”
Chad
awakened me from my stupor.

Was this some kind of joke?

“You want
my
number? Why?”

A strange look clouded his face. I scanned the gymnasium. Trina & Company watched everything. Apparently, I waited too long to respond.

“If that’s a problem…”

I still said nothing because my brain refused to cooperate, to say the one word I wanted it to say: yes.

“All right,”
Chad
said finally as he turned away, slighted. I wanted to stop him, but I was too late. He was gone. I had ruined my chance. What a total jester I was. I worked hard to recoup from my absolute mind freeze. I needed to find Grace anyway. But as I caught sight of Trina making her way toward
Chad
, something possessed me.

I pulled a pen and paper from my purse and jotted down my number. I waltzed over to
Chad
. He hovered on the perimeter of the room, talking with Joe from the game. Their conversation puttered to a halt as I approached. I knew Trina was watching.

“Sorry about back there,” I spoke loudly enough for Trina to hear. “Here’s my number.” I slipped it into his hand, paid him an overdue smile, and minced away. I wanted to witness Trina’s reaction, but decided to play it cool instead.

My heart raced and perspiration pooled at my armpits as I rushed to find Grace.

“You’ll never get him. He only danced with you out of pity.” Her voice was a haunting whisper. “I mean, look at you. You’re so vanilla.” 

I started to speak, but Trina and her entourage sauntered away. For a brief moment, her threat frazzled me. But what more could she do? She already cast dispersions on me and treated me like a second-class citizen.

I am not a loser
, I repeated over and over to myself like a mantra. If I said it enough, maybe I’d eventually believe it. The sad thing was I sure felt like a loser.

I gathered myself together. I hadn’t seen Grace in over twenty minutes, and she apparently failed to emerge from the girls’ bathroom. I headed back toward the restroom, but skidded to a halt when I saw her sitting alone on the hallway floor.

“Grace?”

She barely lifted her head.

“What are you doing out here?” I crawled to her side.

“Waiting for a ride.”

Tears poured from her reddened eyes. As I put my arm around her, I considered telling her about
Chad
and his date, but Grace looked so pathetic. Instead, I rubbed the smudged makeup from her face.

“Why don’t we go for a walk or something?”

She shook her head and tucked her knees under the embrace of her arms. To me, the whole episode seemed so trivial that I didn’t know what to say. The silence between us became awkward, and I forced myself to break it.

“Your mom coming?”

“No.”

“Then who?” I asked.

“Jake.”

Jake? A tidal wave of blood flooded my heart.

“I suppose you’ll want to stay,” she mumbled.

I looked toward the gym where
Chad
was. It was all a dream. What happened back there couldn’t have been real. Not for someone like me.

“No,” I lied.

“You’re such a good friend, Noelle.”

After dancing with
Chad
, I didn’t feel like one.

Grace and I huddled together on the cold, hallway floor until Jake crept up on us. In his T-shirt and faded denim, he looked better than any formally dressed guy at the dance did—except for one. My eyes slid to
Chad
, but then I yanked myself back, remembering he wasn’t mine to want or to have.

“Hey, little sis. What’s going on?” His voice boomed with concern. He reached out his hand and helped her up.

“Nothing.”

Wrinkles pressed into her dress, and her makeup was smeared.

“You sounded upset.” He did a good job of pretending everything was okay.

“I’m fine.” Her sniffles gave her away.

Jake looped an arm around her and walked her down the hallway like a drunken woman who needed sobering. Their tones became inaudible, so I trailed behind, feeling throbs of self-pity because he hadn’t even acknowledged me. But
Chad
did.
Vanilla
? Yeah, maybe. But he had
my
number, not Trina’s.

I arrived home well before curfew. My mom and dad lounged on the couch watching a rerun of
House
. My mother turned down the volume much to the chagrin of my father.

“You’re home early. Everything all right?”

“Yeah. It just wasn’t what we thought it would be.”

My mother watched me, waiting for more detailed information. “Whose dress is that?”

“Grace’s. She didn’t like the one I brought.”

“A little adult, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “I’m going to bed now.”

“Goodnight.” My dad called out as he turned up the volume of the television set.

“Are you wearing makeup?” My mother stopped me abruptly with her question.

“I don’t know.”

“You know the rules about wearing makeup.”

“It won’t happen again. Is Becca home?”

“No. She’s spending the night at Gloria’s house.”

I remembered seeing her with Carl, pressed against him in a corner, folding herself into him. Mom thought she went to a pajama party at Gloria’s house. How naïve could she be? Becca had a pajama party all right, but not the kind my mother would ever approve of. However, I was the one who’d be forced into mass in the morning. While Becca reaped the benefits of her lies and stories, I repented for them.

I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and crawled between the covers of my bed. I closed my eyes and relived the dance with
Chad
, reveling in Trina’s reaction to it. I laughed out loud, thinking how she must have curdled when I handed him my phone number.

Then Jake walked through my thoughts. I imagined myself dancing with him instead of
Chad
, wondering how he smelled and what cologne he wore. I fantasized about his arms enveloping me, pulling me close. If Grace hadn’t been so pathetic and weepy, he surely would have noticed me, seen how grown-up I looked. Right? Maybe not. I hit the back button in my mind and played out the dance with
Chad
again as I drifted off to sleep.

“Let’s go, Noelle. I don’t want to be late. Five minutes. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” I swallowed my toothpaste.

For the first time that school year, I couldn’t get out of Sunday mass. I dried off, ran a comb through my hair, and dressed.

As we stepped onto the walkway, we noticed it. A front yard decorated with toilet paper. It covered the orange and palm trees, as well as the mailbox. My mother appeared shocked that her precious landscaping was doused with such foul material.

“Who’s responsible for this?” She looked at me as if I carried a direct connection to the perpetrator.

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t go, leaving the house like this,” she hissed.

I worked hard not to smile at the reprieve this gave me from church.

“You think this is funny?”

“No.” But secretly I did. It almost seemed like a message from God that He didn’t need me to go to mass.

My dad pulled out of the garage, saw the litter, and stepped out of the car.

“Do you see this, Jack?” Of course he saw the whole thing. How could anyone miss it?

“We can’t go and leave the house looking like this,” she repeated like a looped recording. “Damnit!”

“I’ll stay home and clean it up,” I offered.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m just offering. If I stay, then we won’t all have to
miss
church
this morning.”

The wheels turned, and she reluctantly nodded her approval. “All right. But I want it all cleaned up by the time we get home.”

She crammed herself into the car. As the vehicle backed out of the driveway, my mother rolled down her window. “And you’re going to church next Sunday.”