Chapter 10
So we walk down the hallway, Ally just in front of me, and we make our way to the cafeteria where girls dressed in red baseball caps with white horns dance to hip hop like a bunch of parrots on Youtube. Perfect.
My stomach drops to my knees.
“The freshman want to do their routine for us seniors a few times before their big game. You did a great job with them,” Ally says.
The seniors on the squad all sit on a cafeteria table and we put our heads in our hands. I’m in the dead center. One of the girls on the floor has a shaky leg before Ally cues the music. But every kick, every flip and all their splits are timed perfectly to each other and the music, and I wish they were dancing to Techno but hip hop is cool I guess. I’m proud, even though I don’t have anything to do with them getting it right.
The freshmen parrots swarm around me afterwards clucking. “What do you think?” “Do we have it yet?” “Did we hit the marks right?” “Should we do it over?”
I love being swarmed. I love being in charge. I love the way the freshman hang on my every word.
“Perfect, you nailed it,” I say. And there’s a cheer, of course, because that’s what we, I mean, that what cheerleaders do best.
“You mean we can go?” The girl with the shaky leg says.
“Yes,” I say. My peacock-self must be super-picky.
There’s a bunch of squeals but they fade fast as the flock rounds up their backpacks and jackets and flies out of the cafeteria to get ready for the dance.
So I follow my new pack out of the cafeteria. Ally and I walk to her locker. Inside it’s perfectly decorated with amazing guys with amazing abs and celebrities I’ve never heard of, because on Planet Popular all the dodos are peacocks and that means Justin and Selena are dodos. But, honestly, the dodos-turned-peacocks here don’t look that bad. Anyway, Ally says, “So, Trina is going with Brad. Can you believe it? Brad?”
When I don’t say anything Ally says, “Earth to Roxie? Brad! How does that make you feel? That new girl, the little social climber, going for your boyfriend and, well, getting him?”
Ok. So here’s where it gets weird. I mean epically weird. Ten Commandments with like seven sequels weird. First of all Ally is talking about things she never used to, mostly because she used to think boys were aliens––all except for Brian, apparently. My hot, non-geeky brother looks like a complete stranger to me now. But seriously, how cool is it to have a hot older brother? It’s probably what got me popular in the first place. I wonder if he’s still smart too? Anyway, I don’t know what to say because A) who the heck is Trina and B) what’s a Brad and C) I guess I’m supposed to be jealous from the vibe Ally is putting off.
Ally pulls a few books out of her locker.
“I don’t know, I think Hayden is pretty amazing,” I say trying to deflect the drama.
“You got that right, only, are you going to be able to handle Victoria?”
No clue. I wish there were Cliff Notes on this new life. Complete with what to say or not say. All of a sudden I feel like I’m skating Tear Drop Lake on ice that’s just barely frozen over and I skated into the middle, even though I know I shouldn’t, then someone pushes me into the dark, cold unknown.
I shiver.
“You think I can’t?” I decide a little bit of attitude is required. I don’t know how to throw attitude but I’ve definitely seen it done. How the peacocks keep their minions in place by pulling rank. I feel horrible. Like I’ve taken a bite of something bitter. My whole body kind of tenses up after, waiting to see how it’ll play out.
“No. I know you can. I guess you burn through guys pretty quick,” Ally says.
I burn through guys? Me? I didn’t want to have a reputation of burning through guys. But, since I just kissed my first guy like two seconds ago my head’s spinning.
“I guess you know how to cast a spell,” and she tosses a shiny square piece of foil my way and I catch it. Ewww. She thinks that’s how I get guys? I want to throw up.
“No, Hayden and I aren’t like that,” I say hoping that’s true. I get kind of queasy inside.
We learned all about babies and diseases but, to actually hold one of these things is a little creepy. And as wonderful as going to the dance is, as amazing as I picture it in my mind, I know I’m not ready for what Ally’s talking about. I mean, my body might be what, I don’t even know how old a senior is. I do the math. I’m seventeen. Hmm. Is that the age everybody does it?
Ally slams her locker door closed and a few freshman girls pass us by with the same look in their eye that I had every time I passed Adrianne in the hallway. The look that says they want to be peacocks too. If only they knew what peacocks had to do sometimes. They might not like it. I’m more than beginning to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I think about going back home, before it’s too late. So I won’t have to do something I’m not ready for. And I think I might want to forget about peacocks and try to be happy with being just me. But I don’t know how to go back. And I really want to be a queen.
We walk down the hall a little too fast for me to read all the posters and flyers up on the walls. I want to read every one, but we’re on the march and I have Homecoming to get ready for. My stomach flips when I think about what it will be like to go on my first date ever, even though it’s my gazillionth peacock-me date. And my stomach flips again thinking about Hayden. What Brad and Victoria might do when they see me. What they look like. How people will recognize me when I don’t recognize myself.
Ally and I walk down the hall past all the trophy cases and by the door to the girls’ pool locker room. I get a big whiff of chlorine when Ally and I push our way through the double doors to the high school student parking lot. There’s like fifty cars parked there. Adrianne walks up one of the rows of cars. She stops at a faded red Camaro, a super-old Camaro. Her head is slumped down and she sticks her key into her lock.
Ally presses her key chain and it activates a beep-beep of a white BMW, convertible. Her white, BMW convertible. Ally sort of rolls her eyes. “What are you looking at?” She says staring down the row of cars.
“Um, nothing.”
So Ally stands there and she and I are talking about stuff I have no clue about, who’s-dating-who, and the lives of complete strangers. And there’s no way to describe to you how completely bizarre it is to be with Ally in this way.
Ally reaches into her purse and pulls out some keys. Yes, keys. She can drive. I can drive.
“Well, you coming?” she says.
“Um, what’s your dress look like?”
“It looks a lot like the one we bought together at Saks on Michigan Ave. last month.” Ally rolls her eyes.
I’m automatically seventeen. It’s so star-nosed mole. Freakish. Too different. I’m too different. I want to sit in my room and dance to Techno and watch South Park. I don’t want to think about little foil wrappers and me stealing boys away from people and trips to the city to buy dresses. But then, there in the bottom of my purse I see my keys. I reach in and hold them in my hand. I. Can. Drive. Awesome.
I press a button on my key chain like Ally did, hoping I’m in range of my car. Some lights blink and a little beep sounds. I parked right next to Ally. The beautiful grayish-bluish, brand-new Porsche was probably my sweet sixteen present. I heard of girls getting cars on their sixteenth birthday. I’d be lucky if my real parents let me have a party back on planet Earth. Let alone a car.
I mean seriously, this is the best day of my whole life.
“Ok, I’ll see you at your house,” Ally says.
“Great, so what time are pictures again?” I ask, stressed out about how I’ll ever look good in time for Homecoming.
Ally opens her door and slinks into her seat and says, “Sixish.” She stares into her rearview mirror and swipes her lips with a little red lip gloss and says, “I so wanted to go with Brian but you know how that goes.” She fluffs her hair and speaks into the mirror, “I’ll wait until the ti
me is right and then when Cheri isn’t looking I’ll, you know, do that thing I do.” She laughs.
I smile. Even though I don’t understand much of what Ally is saying, I do love seeing her in control. Looking so pretty. “You look great,” I say.
“Thanks, I used jade eyeliner instead of my signature black. I like your mascara. Is it brown-black?” Ally asks.
“Yeah,” I say, having no clue, just happy to have some sort of normal conversation with her.
“OK, I’ll see you at your place,” Ally says starting her engine.
I lower myself into the driver’s seat of my Porsche. My freaking Porsche. I can’t imagine being thirteen again. Being a dodo. Astral projecting to Planet Popular is the best thing I’ve ever done. My car is beautiful with blonde leather seats that smell like heaven. I slip the keys into the ignition and start to sweat.
I turn the key and some weird scratching sound that doesn’t even sound like a car comes out of the engine. I try again and it starts. Being a teenager is like being a peacock. Everything you do is cool but it’s pretty bizarre. Like how a peacock feels when it fans its feathers for the first time.
And that’s what I feel like I’m doing. I don’t even know how to drive a freaking car. But I do it any way. I press on the gas, because that’s what you do when you want to move right? Only I don’t have the car in gear, because I don’t even freaking know about gears, and when I press on the gas nothing happens. I know I need to back up but I put the gear in the wrong place and when I press on the gas I lurch forward instead and as epically bad as you feel as a teenager who never gets noticed, it’s much, much worse when you screw up as a peacock.
Homecoming Queens very rarely beach their cars on grassy knolls, but, that’s exactly what this Homecoming Queen does. It takes me two seconds to blow my peacock-cover.
Ally runs out of her car and she’s laughing her head off.
“What the hell?” Ally says.
“Ahh, yeah, what the hell.” I say all mad, at myself.
After a crowd comes around and a tow truck swings by, Ally drives me to my house. Only it’s not my house. It’s somebody else’s house which means I’ll have to get ready in a total stranger’s house to try and make myself look beautiful before I go on my first and last Homecoming date where I might have to, well, you know.
“I bet your dad’s going to kill you,” Ally says.
Great.
“Yeah, just adds to my festival-of-pain.” I say not even bothering to be my grown-up self anymore.
Ally screws up her eyes at me.
We walk into the house in almost total silence. OMG, my peacock house is amazing. It’s huge. I need a map to find my room. But I don’t worry about being lost because Ally loses it.
“5, oh damn, it’s 5?” She yells at her cell phone. “Lemme just grab my shoes. I’ll text Blaine I’ll be late.” She says all mad she doesn’t even try to hide it. I don’t blame her. I’ve just screwed up Homecoming. Probably my one and only Homecoming.
I’m going to Homecoming and I’ll be lucky if I can even put on lip gloss. I so suck at mascara. I had no idea peacocks were under so much stress. And what’s with Blaine? It’s hard to keep all these B names straight. Brad, Brian, now Blaine. He must be Ally’s date.
Ally makes a beeline for my room. It’s gorgeous, just what a peacock’s room should be. It’s huge and has wood on the walls even. And there’s this bed that’s bigger than my room back home and a vanity. I open one of its drawers and there’s every shade of eye shadow in there you could ever imagine. It’s all the colors of a peacock in there.
Ally can’t wait to get out of the house. But I want to get ready with her, because I want to talk to her. I want to feel as close to Ally as we are in the real world. The place we are real friends. Real friends don’t care if they screw up. I mean a real friend will stick by your side. And I miss the Ally I knew. The one I knew before Adrianne moved in.
“It’ll save time if I just get ready at my place?” she says practically backing out of my room as she talks.
It’s already happening. I’m losing my best friend here on Planet Popular too. I wonder how long it will take me to crash and burn all my friends here. Hayden was right. Planet Popular isn’t what I thought. My phone rings. I have a phone. It’s on the vanity. I read the name that comes up on the display. It says Danielle. I have no idea who Danielle is. I don’t know a Danielle. But I press answer because I love cell phones and because I am dying to try to fix things with Ally and maybe looking like I have a million friends might make her still want to be friends with me.
“Hi Danielle, what’s up?”
My plan doesn’t work because the minute I answer my phone Ally bolts. Like I mean she would have won the gold medal in The Olympics of Bolting.
“The limo is coming by to pick us up at Landon’s at 6:30 so I just wanted to be sure you and Hayden will be here by 6,” Danielle says.
“Ah, yeah, about that, we might be a little, um, late,” I say.
Silence.
“Well, I guess we can wait for the Homecoming Queen,” she says.
I hang up and stare at myself in the round vanity mirror. Some Homecoming Queen. My mascara is all smudged and my hair is a mess. I hope that I can do my dark brown, highlighted hair up special enough so that my look says Homecoming Queen. I get another text. And then another. One’s from my mom another from my dad.
Mom’s wondering why I didn’t make my hair appt.
Dad’s wondering why I had the accident.
I wiggle out of my cheerleading outfit and head over to my closet. I want to get a good look at the dress. Sort of visualize how it will look on me at the big dance. I open the doors to the closet. The dress hangs there. Amazing. It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Very simple, which I think is cool. It’s tangerine, no beading, and only a few sequins. Very form-fitting.
I get another text.
Cant wait 2 C U, from Hayden.
I can’t breathe. I run into the bathroom and hop in the shower. The warm water calms me and I scrub at my face to try and wash off the grimy, old makeup. I rub my eyes to get all the mascara off. They burn.
When the stinging stops I spot a razor, it’s pink and cute and propped in the corner of the shower where the tile meets the floor-to-ceiling glass door. I hold it in one hand and rub my legs with the other. My legs feel like sandpaper.
I’ve never shaved before. I pick up the razor and examine the blade before I run it over my skin. I do my pits first. Two swipes here and two swipes there. It sort of burns a little. No wait, it burns a lot. Way a lot. There’s this pink bottle in the corner too that I didn’t see before, Skintimate. I take the cap off and squirt some fluffy cream in my hand and put an inch-thick layer over my calf. I try again. It feels better until. Something burns.
Blood pours out of a gash at my ankle. I run the wound under the water but it just turns into a red river pouring down the drain. I press down on the gash. I think I might have to put a tourniquet on to make the bleeding stop like the Boy Scouts fake-do with the real me on Red Cross Disaster Days back on Earth where all their little sisters are the victims.
I imagine the headline, Homecoming Queen bleeds to death in first known shaving fatality. I must have sliced an artery or something. I can’t breathe. I finish suds-ing up and rinse off. I reach for a towel just outside of the shower and use it to keep the pressure on. Water all dripping down into my eyes and ears and then I see it. Hair. There. And I don’t mean my head. My heart skips a beat.
The blood slows but doesn’t stop. I towel off fast and rifle through the cabinets. The only kind of band-aid I find is this big square one so I put it on over the cut. I’m happy my dress is long. It will hide it. I’m sure of that. But I’ll know it’s there. And dorky looking. So dodo.
I walk over to the vanity and check my cell. I have a cell. 5:30. No time for makeup. Hayden will be here in half an hour and I won’t be ready at all, my hair will still be wet
for freak’s sake. I sit down thinking, if I can just get my makeup on, I’ll look OK and my hair can just dry naturally. I will be fine.
So I sit on the beautiful small, velvet-cushioned seat and I open the drawer on the right-hand side. And I reach in for some skin-colored cover-up. But when I dab it on, I just look like a zombie wombat, so I go back to the bathroom sink and scrub my face with a rag. I get out the blow dryer and dry my hair instead of bothering with makeup, hoping dry hair might make me look beautiful, when the doorbell rings.
Brian yells upstairs, “Roxie, it’s for you?”
5:50––it’s too soon. There’s no way it’s for me. No way it’s Hayden. I throw a robe on because that’s all I can think to do and I take the stairs slow. They are spirally and as I go downstairs I try pinching myself. But I don’t wake up. And there, at the bottom of the stairs is a handsome boy. Another boy. It’s not Hayden. I have no idea who this boy is.
“Roxie?”
Wow, like he doesn’t even recognize me? Wooops.
“Yeah, hi.” Whoever-you-are.
“I couldn’t pick up Trina before I stopped by to see you,” Mr. Dashing says.
Trina. He must be my ex. I’ve got ex-s. That’s so cool.
“I saw, uh heard, what happened to you today and I wondered if you were ok,” Brad takes a couple steps closer to the staircase. I walk backwards, up one step.
Really? Cause isn’t that what cell phones are for? I have a feeling that popular Roxie would still be mad about Trina stealing her boyfriend, or Brad dumping her for Trina, or whatever-the-heck-happened. All would not be pink and fluffy between her and this guy Brad. But I don’t even know how to be that girl.
“That’s sweet. Ah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not really myself.”
“Me neither,” he lets out a sigh and smiles.
I unclench my robe tie. I’d been holding onto the belt so tight my fingers have turned purple. Blood flows back into my fingers.
“You know, when I got in the car tonight, automatic pilot brought me here. I always thought you and I would go to Homecoming together.”
Wow this Roxie even has guys stop by who aren’t dating her. And then I freak, full-on silently star-nose mole––which I think takes years off a person because only their heart knows how freaked out they are––because I’m not dressed yet.
“I, ah, should go get ready,” I say all skipper about two hot guys wanting to be with me. A me I don’t know how to be.
“Oh, yeah, you look great,” Brad says.
“I’m in a robe.” I blush. “Thanks,” I say.
“Save a dance for me tonight?” he says.
“Sure,” I say not knowing if that’s what Peacock Roxie would do, but he seems tortured. Like he doesn’t really fit in either. I sort of like his pain. His face looks how I feel.
I smile and on Brad’s way out the door, Hayden walks in.
“Brad?”
Hayden says.
They exchange glances but Hayden doesn’t say anything. He just gives me a sort of accusing stare.
“Hey, bro, I was just leaving,” Brad says, patting Hayden on the back. Brad sort of half-smiles at me on his way out the door.
Hayden gives me the once over and I think I catch a look in his eye. Something I’ve never seen in a boy’s eye before. It’s not mad, it’s not happy it’s––star-nosed moley.
“You had your chance with Roxie and you blew it,” Hayden yells out the door. “Roxie, what’s going on?”
“No idea. He just showed up here.”
“Just showed up?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re still in your robe?”
I want to tell Hayden everything. About the way he makes pretzels in our cooking class and how his hand brushing over mine makes me all tingly inside. And now he’s standing in front of me years older, like four years older, looking fabulous and I look like a beauty-school dropout. But, I can’t tell him. And if I go to the dance, it’ll just be a matter of time before he finds out about the real me, the dodo me. And he’ll dump me. But I want to go so bad.
“Roxie, you can tell me.”
“Hey, I got a late start, that’s all. I had an accident.” I don’t think you could really call driving a car I don’t know how to drive an accident. And doing said-thing all because I want to be a peacock more than anything and now that I am, I can’t handle it. “And anyway, I’m just going to go upstairs and get my dress on, ok?”
“Accident?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
“Yeah, my perfect sister drove her Porsche onto a hill at school.” Brian says in a way that keeps my stomach from twisting like Hayden’s perfect pretzels. Because I secretly like it when Brian teases me. I miss it. And it feels good to hear something familiar. Brothers, even when they’re hot they can be so annoying.
“No way,” Hayden says.
I slip upstairs while Brian fills Hayden in. I feel Hayden’s eyes on the small of my back and it makes me smile. I know what he’s thinking. There’s a big difference between thirteen and seventeen. Huge. About as big a difference as there is between a dodo and a peacock. I know this whole thing is too good to be true. And I want it to be true. I’m going to freaking rule The One Enchanted Night Homecoming Dance. I’m going to rock that tiara and I’m going to look the best I’ll ever look in my life.
I hunt for a hair straightener. Every peacock girl has one. I might be late, but I’ll look great, who cares about the photos we are supposed to take before, that’s what I keep telling myself. I put my hands on one of the things Mom never allowed me to have. And I straighten my super-curly, wiry hair. Then I do what I can with the makeup. Since I almost poke my eye out when I try to put it on, I skip the mascara. I swipe on some blush and lip gloss and stick them in my white, puffy feather purse.
I love Peacock Roxie’s taste. I look in the mirror one last time. And for the first time in my life, I love the way I look. My beautiful tangerine dress sparkles a little at the off the shoulder tie and hugs my seventeen year old body in all the right places. The white, feathery puffy-ball-of-a purse and a white flower in my part-up, part-down hair go great with the dress. I like my gold eye shadow and it will always be my favorite. I feel like Cinderella just after her fairy godmother got her ready for the ball. This is my ball and I’m going to make the most of it no matter what happens. I’m on top of the world. Ready to rule it, like peacocks do.
I take a long, deep breath and walk down the steps rocking four-inch heels, taking my time.
“Roxie, you, you are, you look amazing,” Hayden says.
He doesn’t seem to care about the fact I’ve suddenly lost the ability to put on makeup, even on this epic night. He doesn’t even seem to care that I beached my Porsche in the student parking lot. He looks at me like a prince must look at his princess, takes my hand like he did in the attic and slides a corsage over my wrist––all white roses, baby’s breath tied up with a purple ribbon. I love purple. I’m guessing Peacock Roxie does too. I’m guessing we aren’t so different after all. I remember the purple ribbon on my birthday present. The shattered glass. The message in the bottle. Moonlight on the attic floor.
“What have you done to my sister,” Brian says in a real cute, semi-stunned way. Like he sort of means it.
I laugh. I must have done something right because here I am making two boys act all squirmy and weird. And I get all squirmy and weird inside too.