Maybe I’m finally getting inside.
SIXTEEN
“YOU GUYS LOOK GREAT,” DAD SAYS, AND SNAPS A picture on his cell. May and I stand out in the driveway, waiting for Panda and Richard to show up. She rubs at the goose bumps on her arms. It’s early October, and the weather is finally beginning to turn.
I pull my shawl over my shoulders to cover my arms. The only dress I had in the closet is one I apparently bought with Kylie over the summer. It’s backless, red, with a long slit. Even though the figures are fading, they are still easily visible on my back. I pull the shawl closer to cover them.
“Do you have to wear the pin on your homecoming dress?”
“I don’t have to,” I say, and reposition it so it’s easily seen on my chest. “I want Taft to see it.”
The trees and greenery are basically blinking lights in the coming twilight, because of the fireflies coating the trunks and branches. When we check out Dad’s digital pic, there are hundreds blinking in the background of the picture.
“You should just drop the shawl,” Mom says, coming out of the house. She holds a hand over her wineglass so that no fireflies decide to take a dip in her Pinot Grigio. Every time Mom talks to me, I hear myself calling Bettie and asking for help. I see the white wine bottle rolling across the floor. I don’t want to ask Bettie what happened that night; I want to forget it entirely.
I don’t want that part of my memory to come back.
Then why is this memory the one you keep coming back to? a small voice says, and again, I push it away, deeper into the dark room of my mind.
“Maybe you should just let people see the figures more,” May says for the ten millionth time.
“On homecoming night? No thanks.”
“She still thinks it’s a pity vote,” May says to Mom and Dad, and I could smack her.
“Why wouldn’t they vote for you?” Mom says, and takes a sip of white wine. “You’re the star of the school.”
Panda’s lime green car zooms down the street.
“Oh good, he drives so safely,” Dad says to Mom.
Panda stops at the edge of the driveway; a rap song I don’t recognize blasts from the speakers. Once they park, Panda and Richard get out of the car and of course Richard is the only one dressed in a suit. Panda is in a pair of dress pants and a T-shirt with a tie printed on the front. He also has on his sunglasses again.
“You look dashing!” I cry. “Nice T-shirt,” I add, to Panda.
“One more picture!” Dad says. He gestures by showing them the cell.
“Humor him, please,” I beg the guys.
“Anything for Queen Hippolyta’s family!” Richard says with an exaggerated bow.
“You guys call her the queen now?” Mom says. She looks at me. “I knew you liked to be the center of attention, but don’t you think that’s taking things a little far?”
My friends look at me awkwardly. A bolt of horror runs through me. I don’t have time to stop Richard before he explains. I didn’t even realize I hadn’t told my friends I was keeping the play a secret from my parents. Everything had happened so fast that it never crossed my mind.
“She’s Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that’s all I meant,” Richard says. His tone is casual because he assumes Mom knows about the play. Who wouldn’t?
Mom blinks a lot of times and very fast. “I see,” she says, and takes a deep sip of her wine. May looks back and forth between Mom and me. Mom places a hand on her hip. “And when were you going to tell us you tried out for the play and got a part?”
“Can we talk about this later, Mom?” I whisper.
I don’t make eye contact with Richard but I can tell he’s horrified.
“We should really get going. I’m always late,” Panda says, and takes off his sunglasses. He extends a hand to Mom and Dad, and my friends escape into Panda’s car.
Dad kisses my head. “Have a good time,” he says.
When it’s Mom’s turn for a hug, I make sure to say, “With everything going on with the journalists and you and the company—” She cuts me off by hugging me. “It’s all right.” I pull away quickly and get into the car. “Have a good time!” she calls crisply.
“I’m so sorry,” Richard says, spinning around in his seat. The frames of his eyeglasses are black tonight to match his suit.
I squeeze his shoulder. “So not your fault. I just wasn’t ready to tell her yet.”
When May and I meet eyes, she gives me an encouraging smile.
When we get to school, I have to admit I’m impressed. The gym looks incredible. A huge banner on the wall reads CLASS OF 2017! Blue-and-white streamers and gold twinkle lights hang by the hundreds from the ceiling. A mass of bodies dance to a DJ in the center of the room.
“Kind of a lame theme,” Panda says, and makes a beeline for the snacks that line the wall. “School spirit? Like we’re all soooo disappointed about the football season getting canceled?”
“At least we know they didn’t use the football budget on decorations,” I say to May as I grab a chocolate-chip cookie. I do a sweep for Wes, of course, but also for Kylie. I really do want Kylie to win. There are so many girls in glittering dresses and guys in suits, it’s impossible to find her in the crowd.
Richard pulls on May and they immediately head to dance. Panda sits down at a table near the dance floor and munches on his treats. I am about to sit too when Richard and May shimmy over to me.
“Drop your shawl,” Richard cries. He shakes his hips and spins on his heels.
“No way.”
“It’s fourteen hundred degrees in here,” May cries.
“Stop peer pressuring her, Bad Seed,” Panda cries. Behind me, his crew from the 7-Eleven already surrounds him.
May pulls me to the edge of the dance floor. Richard is an amazing dancer and it doesn’t take long for a group of people to dance with us. After a few songs, I fan my face with my hand and wipe sweat from my forehead with the edge of my shawl.
With the numbness gone and much of the strength back in my right side, I can dance easier. The exaggerated funky downbeats make me want to swivel my hips.
“Make way!” Panda cries. Leaping up from the table, he does a somersault onto the floor. He jumps up and says, “Ta-da!”
Richard swings his tie above his head. I nearly trip when I catch a glimpse of Wes. He’s near the far wall of the room, but he disappears out the side door of the gym, into a hallway.
“I . . . I’ll be right back,” I say, and edge through the crowd. It takes me a while to get through everyone. I pass Lila, Eve, and Kylie dancing in a tight group near the front stage. I wave timidly at Kylie, and as I expect, she turns her back to me. I step out into the empty hallway. He couldn’t have gotten too far.
I find Wes sitting in the weight room by a huge window overlooking the football fields. The twilight sky is a mix of purple and gold with all the fireflies bobbing and weaving through the warm October air. He’s wearing a charcoal gray suit that makes the blue of his eyes pop.
“Taking a break?” I say, and walk toward him. The weight room is right next to the gym, so the thumping music is vibrating the mirrors, distorting my reflection.
Wes snaps his head up to look at me.
“Fruit punch and cookies getting you down?” I try again.
He doesn’t reply at first, but his lips part just a little. “Wow, Pen. You look great.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You do too. What are you doing in here?”
“I don’t know; homecoming is kind of lame this year.”
“Tell me you haven’t become a football fan during my lost year.”
He laughs. “No.”
I lean on the wall near him and cross my arms under the shawl.
“Just, it’s senior year. I wanted to go with . . .” And he shrugs, making sure not to meet my eyes. He groans loudly, catching me off guard. I take a step back.
“I can’t do this with you, Penny!” he confesses, and stands up. “One minute
I’m mad about what happened with us and the next, I’m . . .” He stands across from me and the closeness between us makes me flush. “I want you to remember, and you don’t, and I know it’s not fair to you to be mad at you for that. You can’t control it. It is what it is. That’s what happened in rehearsal,” he confesses. “If you were wondering.”
I’m just glad we’re finally coming to it. That’s it’s finally coming out in the open.
“I was.”
“It’s like I can’t be close to you like that when I’m all messed up about this.”
“What did happen between us?” I ask, and he looks over my shoulder, out the window to the empty fields. “If anyone can tell me, you can.”
He nods.
It’s dark in the weight room, but the fireflies outside have made the room glow gold.
Wes has gotten so much taller than me. I almost reach up and touch his jaw, but lower my hand. Instead, he lifts his arm and wraps his fingers around mine. His are callused from woodworking. Wes leads me out a door to the fields and my heart thumps when I swallow.
“What are we doing?” I ask.
He walks us across the field until we stand in the direct center.
Wes and I face each other, me in my dress and him in the suit, and the fireflies swell. Thousands flutter around us, in a symphony of light. Up, down, and all directions, they make lattices of light. They make patterns of iridescence. Our eyes are locked—I don’t want to talk too loud and break the spell. He brings his hand over my heart and leaves it there. I press my body closer to him and in the space between us, I could kiss him so easily.
“Penny Berne . . .” He says my name and examines my face with a shake of his head.
“I’m still me,” I whisper.
He takes the edge of my shawl and tugs it so it falls off my shoulders, exposing the figures I have so desperately tried to hide. We let the shawl pool at our feet. Adrenaline buzzes high in my chest, at the base of my throat. Wes lifts my arm to his eye line. The branches I’ve been so ashamed of are etched deeply onto my skin, but in this sea of moving light, here, with Wes, it doesn’t matter.
No one but Mom and the nurses have touched the figures, but now, here, Wes runs his fingers over the branches on my arms.
“When you quit the play . . .” he says, “you wouldn’t talk to me. It was like you quit me too. And I didn’t know why, or what I’d done. I thought you just . . . didn’t have feelings for me. After I made you the planetarium, things were just different.”
When his eyes meet mine, they seem almost gold from the light of the fireflies. He lifts his hand from my chest and I think he’s going to hold my cheek. I need to keep touching him. The field might have disappeared for all I notice; his hand rises to cup my cheek. I take a breath, my cheeks flush, and I can’t stop the tears coming. I don’t know if I want them to.
“You were gone. It was like someone went out and replaced you with robot Penny. I didn’t know this icy, vacant girl. That Penny wasn’t mine. I wanted my Penny back.” A firefly flies right above our heads, almost illuminating his thoughts. He glances at me and says, as if to himself, “Our Penny.”
The tears fall over my cheek and onto his hand. His eyes lift to the dancing lights.
“I think they’ve stayed for you,” he whispers.
He leans forward, closer and closer, his lips coming toward mine.
With a bang of the gymnasium side door, we jump apart.
“Holy balls,” Panda cries. “You won! Penny, you won! You gotta come!”
“Nice rhyme!” May says, and Panda shoves her back from the doorway.
It doesn’t compute at first what they mean. “Homecoming queen!” Richard cries.
Wes and I meet eyes. “Oh my god,” I say. “I really won the pity vote.”
I jog behind my friends, and only when I get into the raucous cheering and see Tank standing on the stage with a crown on his head do I remember I left my shawl on the field—and it surprises me that I don’t want to put it on anymore.
Alex James and Kurt Leonard stand behind Tank. Kylie and Angela, the other girl nominated, stand next to Ms. Reley. Kylie’s smiling but it’s polite; she blinks hard and often, probably trying to force away tears. Why doesn’t this walk to get my crown feel like a victory?
I lift the hem of my skirt as I walk up the steps. I glance back for Wes, but don’t see him in the crowd. I know people are clapping, but they are pointing too. My ferns are exposed, copper and gold, under the bright lights.
Ms. Reley reaches behind the DJ table and pulls out a gold tiara. She says something into the microphone about me being the homecoming queen and starring as Hippolyta in the play. I can’t hear it all over the applause and cheers.
I bend my knees dutifully as she places the tiara on top of my head. I check the crowd and the people watching us. Eve and Lila stand near a horde of basketball and football players. Eve isn’t clapping at all but looking at Kylie and I can’t bring myself to attempt eye contact.
Tank runs to me and spins me around on the stage.
“Yeah, Berne!” he cries, and the room explodes in cheers just as he places me down. Lila claps and smiles up at me, and I think that sure, maybe it was a pity vote, but maybe it wasn’t.
The DJ cries out something unintelligible and a rap song brings everyone to the dance floor again. I walk over to hug Kylie, and just as I lift my hands she passes by me and descends the stairs to her waiting friends. She trails rose perfume and cigarette smoke in her wake—it’s an oddly familiar smell, comforting. It reminds me of a rainstorm and I don’t know why. But Kylie bows her head while Eve and Lila engulf her in their arms. They hurry her off to the edge of the dance floor toward the bathroom, and when she passes under a light, I can see she has broken down completely, dissolved in tears.
“Penny!” Panda cries. There, in the center of the dance floor, are my friends. May keeps pointing at the space open next to her, gesturing me to get out there. Richard cha-chas like a professional. “My queen, Hippolyta of the Homecoming!” Panda cries. “Come dance with your subjects!”
I jump from the last stair to the floor, then do a couple of turns and a fake ballet leap to the group of my friends, who wait for me—with open arms.
SEVENTEEN
ALMOST A WEEK LATER, AFTER SCHOOL, I SIT onstage with May, Richard, Panda, and Wes as we paint five of Wes’s wooden trees for the fairy realm set.
“I feel horrible,” I say. “She wanted to be homecoming queen. I didn’t.”
“So did I,” Richard says, and we all laugh.
“Just let it go,” May says. “You won fair and square. Besides, you can’t change it now.”
Wes is next to me, running a brown paintbrush up and down the trunk to give it texture. I keep trying to find excuses to nudge or touch him.
That morning I had read through a newspaper article that Mom had left out on the kitchen table.
Alice Berne: Back in Action!
Following her daughter’s near-death experience, Alice Berne is taking a cue from her daughter and entering back into the spotlight. Penny Berne, a senior at East Greenwich Private and theater enthusiast, just won the role of Hippolyta in this fall’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—
Now, I adjust the newspaper under the tree Wes is painting, making sure the article is carefully positioned under the spot where his brush keeps dripping. A brown blob falls on Mom’s face.
“We’ve already sold two hundred tickets,” Richard says, dabbing a sponge in the last bit of green paint.
“It’s my sordid reputation,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. He lightly pats the tree with the sponge to create texture—so it looks like there are a lot of green leaves. “Any publicity is good publicity.”
“Taft didn’t mention the button yesterday at rehearsal. She’s getting used to me again. That’s a plus,” I say. Wes glances back to see if I am wearing my blue asterisk. I always do—on my chest.
I look out at the empty aud
itorium and the dozens of fireflies bobbing through the darkened room.
Wes passes by behind me and says, “Don’t let her fool you. She’s got an eagle eye, dollface.”
I am about to tell him to shove it with the dollface when he squeezes my shoulder gently before walking away. In a thud of my heart, the memory, the one I’ve been seeing in pieces for weeks, rolls through my head again. It’s fractured, though, like a blinking light bulb that only illuminates part of a room.
Mom comes in and hip checks the island with her cell phone in hand.
She catches herself on her elbow with a smack.
“Mom, stop it. You can barely walk.”
“I’m fine!” She snatches the wine bottle.
“Penny?”
I refocus on my hand holding the paintbrush over the wooden tree.
A firefly in the dark room of my memory weaves out of the blackness toward me, closer to where it knows there is light. Its patterned illumination becomes brighter and brighter with each bob and weave. I wish I could lock the door.
“We need two more cans of evergreen paint,” Wes says. “But I gotta go spray the waterproof lacquer on the ones we’ve already done.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, grateful to get up and move around.
As I get up, I note that the sleeves of my sweater are pushed up near my elbows so the golden figures crawling up my arms are visible. Since homecoming, I’ve stopped caring. I’m not going to pull the sleeves down. I push them up even higher. I’m not going to be afraid anymore. If my brain wants to haunt me with horrible memories of my mother or the way I treated my friends—fine, I’m different.
I am not afraid of who I am now.
I join Wes backstage. “Two cans are all you need?” Wes throws me a thumbs-up. The hazy lighting illuminates us both from above. I wish that he would follow me to the supply closet. I imagine him close to me. I imagine myself touching his face . . . his lips.
“The other night, at homecoming,” I say. I dare to reach out for Wes’s hand and take it into mine so they intertwine. He sighs, and lets go gently.
“I just need a little more time,” he says. “I have to get used to this new version of you.”