She looked at Paul who coincidently was sitting right next to Rebecca and Spencer. That was the other reason why she’d been forced to pay attention to Donna’s pathetic drama. Paul Cohen was her team’s third big assignment. She looked at the dork and couldn’t help to roll her eyes as she watched him. When was she going to finally get to do something more challenging?
* * *
Donna
Donna walked outside after gymnastics class. She had drunk so much water during practice she felt water heavy doing all the tumbling. As she walked along in a daze, she heard a car honking. She ignored it but it got so loud and persistent she finally looked up.
To her shock and bafflement, she saw Brook, an old friend she had met in New York in front of her in a beaten up Ford Mustang. Before she had time to respond, Brook jumped out of the car and hugged her. “Hey, Skinny Gymnast!” Brook yelled out in her loudest city voice.
“What … what are you doing here?” Donna asked, still shocked. She just never pictured in her wildest dreams Brook being in Donna’s little home town.
“Me and a bunch of the New York crew were on a road trip when we met the hottest guy. I decided to stay with him a bit, but then got bored. I remembered you only lived like three hours away so I thought, what the heck.”
Donna smiled the best she could and took a step back, looking at Brook’s new haircut. It was shoulder length now and cut at an angle. She wore a barely there black leather skirt and a white blouse with a small white jacket over it. Her legs, which were the longest legs Donna had ever seen, were bare all the way down to her pointed high heels.
Brook always looked sexy, no matter how trashy her outfits sometimes were. Somehow she always pulled everything together, every accessory perfectly in place. Donna started telling Brook how happy she was to see her. In reality, as much as she loved Brook, she felt how a person felt right after someone they knew had died. Yet there was something to be happy about a short time later. That numb feeling where it’s hard to get excited …
She and Brook went over to the diner when Brook said she was starving after the long drive. As they walked in, she saw Ryan, Randy, Lynn, and the rest of their posse, sitting in the front. Spencer was bussing tables from what Donna could see; he must have taken a job there with his mom. The hostess sat them at a table directly across from Ryan and the others. The group seemed to be staring at Brook. The girls in disgust, the boys in pure lust and amusement. Brook, wasting no time, winked at the boys, not paying attention to the girls sitting next to them.
“You didn’t tell me this hick town had so many hot cowboys,” Brook giggled.
“They belong to the cheerleaders sitting beside them,” Donna whispered.
Brook looked them over slowly. “They’ve got nothing on us,” she told Donna with a smile. “Or at least they won’t once I take in those trousers.” Brook loved making clothes; she wanted to be the next Diane Von Furstenberg. She had even once interned at a big teen magazine a few years ago. Donna smiled at her friend.
“How long are you staying?” Donna asked her.
“As long as my skinny gymnast wants me to,” Brook teased. That was Brook’s annoying nickname for Donna. Donna had told Brook three years ago she used to be known as the “Fat Gymnast” in middle school. Brook had made up her mind at that point to turn her into a skinny gymnast instead, hence the nickname. Donna called Brook “Daredevil” in return.
“I have to warn you, compared to the city, this place is as dull as sand,” Donna told her with a smile, feeling herself again for a moment.
“Don’t you know I love the feeling of sand beneath my feet? Besides, if I get bored I’ll make trouble to entertain us both. Starting with him.” Brook pointed right at Randy and winked at him once more.
Donna smiled, her face now bright red.
As they got up to leave Lynn turned around and looked right at them. “Hmm, not only has Donna yet a third time showed off her goodwill ensemble, but she’s brought along a friend styling the knock off version,” Lynn hissed.
Donna looked at Brook hoping she hadn’t heard. She knew Brook was never one to back down from confrontation, especially from someone four years younger than her. Brook’s face was lit up with amusement as she turned around ever so calmly to face Lynn.
“Kind of like how you’ve chosen to show off your upper half. Ya know, there are these great bras for the elderly in bright red. I think that be a girl like yourself’s kind of style,” Brook told her like a shark snapping toward its prey. Fierce and quick, not giving Lynn a word in edgewise. Lynn, who looked half taken aback by the comment, looked down at her breasts then started off on some kind of insult.
“You just go on and cry your little black heart out,” Brook whistled over Lynn’s voice as she turned and walked out of the diner. Donna followed, afraid to look back. She knew she’d be made fun of by Lynn probably for the rest of the month for that little show, but she didn’t care. The comment reminded her of a sassy version of Spencer’s jokes toward Lynn, making Donna feel normal again for a couple of minutes.
* * *
Three days later, Donna was in her backyard practicing gymnastics while Brook talked to some guy on her cell phone. Donna tried to do her back handspring but she twisted the wrong way and fell.
“You ok?”
“Yeah,” Donna told her, standing up slowly and shaking herself. “I’m just distracted, that’s all.”
Brook ended her conversation and walked over to Donna. “By me?” Brook asked.
“Oh, no, not at all.”
Brook being around these past three days had at least given Donna a friend. The only slip up that had happened was last night. Donna had turned into “it” again for a couple of seconds, but ran to the shower before Brook or her father could see. Water was the only way of controlling her body, and now after two and a half weeks a tiny part of Donna wanted answers. The other part of her was afraid.
“Donna, Donna!” Brook called her back to earth.
“Yeah?”
“What’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird ever since I got here. Even more quiet than usual.” Brook took Donna’s arm and gently dragged her over to the hammock in her backyard. They both sat on it. A breeze flowed past them, cooling Donna’s hot skin off. In that moment, Donna wanted to tell her everything. A couple of tears flowed out of her eyes and she turned away hiding them.
She couldn’t risk Brook looking at her like Spencer and Rebecca did now. Like she was some kind of scary creature. It’s not like she could prove what she could do anyway. When she turned it just happened.
“Is it something about your two high school friends not being friends with you any more?” Brook asked her gently.
Donna couldn’t control it now, and started crying. Donna hated crying, she was usually able to control herself. “It’s just that, I can’t believe how much we’ve all changed in such a short period of time. It’s like I don’t even know them, and I have nobody at—”
“You have me!” Brook interrupted her. “I’m here for you just like I am in the city during the summer, ok? Now Donna, we all grow up and change—”
Not like this! Donna thought.
“—and sometimes it intimidates people who haven’t grown up yet, or people change and go off in different directions. You’ve lost weight and have become a woman. Of course people are going to get jealous. That’s the game of life,” Brook told her.
Donna nodded, again thinking to herself that she had changed in ways she couldn’t explain or understand. Her life had become so much more complicated than Brook could ever guess, but she let the words sink in, some of them.
“When I went to high school I barely had any friends. Everyone was so fake, ya know? No one knows who they really are in high school anyway. The one person that I thought I’d stay in touch with, I’ve never seen him since graduation. And all the girls that treated me like I was city trash, and thought they were SO above me in high school, when I see those witches now in New York, now
we’re all the same. The world could care less who any of us pretended to be.”
Donna nodded again, imagining Ryan, Lynn, and her, all on the same level years from now. It was hard to believe, especially in a small town where the elderly still gossiped about which football player won which game in 1980. This town didn’t forget anything, you were who you were …Yet Brook was almost four years older than Donna, and from the real world outside of East Applegate where Donna would one day be free. Maybe she was right?
“Cheer up.” Brook wiped away a couple of Donna’s tears.
“I have a date tonight, and I think you kind of have a thing for his brother.”
Donna looked up at Brook, confused.
“Ryan, no Randy, I think that’s his name,” Brook explains. “The older one.”
Donna’s heart started beating fast, thinking about one of her friends with Randy.
“You’re kidding!”
“No, I plan on sucking his tonsils out,” Brook went on.
“But Randy’s still in high school!”
“There is nothing wrong with having a very sexy boy toy. Besides, he’s almost my age right? He said he was held back.”
Yeah, he was held back, Donna knew. Once when he was in the fifth grade, then again in eighth and eleventh grade. He was now one grade ahead of Donna even though he should’ve graduated last year. Randy was notorious for being a trouble maker and a bully, always having his dad bail him out …
“Just be careful, he’s a heart breaker.”
“After you’ve had your heart broken so many times, you learn to stop giving it away,” Brook told her numbingly. Donna looked at her friend, feeling so sad that she felt that way, but knowing she had learned similar lessons with other things in life. She’d learned it with her brother. Every year they went to New York to find him, but after a while, she stopped wishing they’d find him and her dad could start farming again, and money would never be a problem.
Donna stopped thinking that would ever happen years ago …
* * *
Lynn
Lynn sat on Ryan’s lap in his Hummer. They were in the school parking lot, but the windows were tinted. He kissed her fiercely, feeling her body up. She gave in without question, she always did. Ryan was so … unbelievable. Every time a girl looked at him, she fell in love. Wanted him to be hers, like …
“After this,” he kissed her on her neck, “we need to talk.”
She pulled away from him. Whatever he “needed to talk about” it better be important. She had taken good care of her body’s shape to look perfect today, just the way he liked it: tall, small waist, long legs, long hair, bluish eyes.
“Is this about training?” she asked him, a bit excited that maybe he overheard his father talking about something important for them.
“No, it’s about you at school.” His voice was still deep and hot from them kissing seconds ago. She rolled her eyes, annoyed. She had the slightest feeling she knew where this was going, and if so, she wasn’t in the mood. This day was already going bad enough. Right now, she needed him kissing her, making it all seem far away.
She kissed him slowly, then started down his neck. They weren’t talking about this now and that was that.
“Lynn,” he started, pulling her a tiny bit away, enough that they were face to face.
“What more would you like me to do now, Ryan, besides what any other male would enjoy? His girlfriend with any size chest he fancies making out with him!” she snapped viciously. She moved away from him back into the other seat, annoyed. He looked pissed now, too, but she didn’t care, let him feel the way she did.
He hesitated, looking at her and then looking away. “Look, if someone is annoying, or in our way, fine. But—”
“Just say it plain and simple like a man, Ryan!” she yelled, knowing now exactly what he was going to say.
“Lay off Donna Young,” he snapped back coldly, speaking to her more like her team captain than her boyfriend.
“How can you even think about Donna Young while I’m in your car with my shirt off!”
“You know it’s not like that,” he told her.
“Like hell it isn’t!” She grabbed her new pink shirt and started putting it back on, disgusted. “Maybe I would forget about her if you would!” She started putting her belt back on. “Every time the girl trips, I can see the concern on your face. You practically hold your breath until she gets to class safe and sound like a little mouse,” she mocked him.
“She almost died because of me! We’ve grown up together, that’s it.” He grabbed Lynn’s hands and pulled her close. “I’m with you,” he told her now sincerely.
Because I’m not Donna, or because you want me to be? She pushed the thought out of her mind as quickly as it came. She and Ryan were on the same team, and he was her boyfriend. She had the power to fill out his every fantasy. Of course he wanted her and not Donna. She looked at him straight in the eye, still using her pissed off mood to her advantage, to get what she wanted.
“Then forget about her, don’t look at her, or smile at her. If she trips, act like you don’t see her. Think about it as a mission if that’s what it takes. Forget about her, and I will too. If you don’t see her, I won’t see her.”
* * *
Randy
When he got to the movies he saw her, Donna’s friend that had been staying at her house the whole week. He still couldn’t believe this girl was friends with someone like Donna. She looked too wild and free to be friends with anyone around here.
She was tall and leggie. Her short ruffled skirt revealed just about everything, and that lacy top … Randy could barely keep himself contained. She was a city kind of girl. Looking at her in East Applegate was like looking at a gator in the desert. She just didn’t fit.
She walked right up to him confidently. “Hey, cowboy.”
“Hey, yourself.” He flicked his lighter on and off, juggling it in his right hand, sensing the flame in his veins, controlling it.
“So what are we doing tonight?” she asked him as the wind blew through her hair.
“Whatever,” he answered. He looked around; it was going to be a cool, windy night for a change. His first night off in a while.
“Well, you planned for us to meet in front of a movie theater. Did you want to see a movie?” she asked him smoothly.
“Sure.”
As they walked toward the theater, she stared at the titles and babbled something about each one. This part of the date was the boring pointless part. It was the torture part that girls did to lead up to the fun part. Not that Brook was a girl. She was definitely a woman. Not that he’d act any different with her than he did with the rest of the girls he dated. The reality was always the same. He could never truly get close to someone normal like them, so why even bother to try? They were beautiful, but that was all they could ever be. It was something he constantly had to drill into his brother’s head. People like Ryan and Randy had power, but did not have the luxury of getting close to anyone. Not that Randy ever would want to …
* * *
Donna
Donna stood on her balance beam in her backyard. It was 9:30 and her dad was inside on the couch with Smoky fast asleep. Her version of the balance beam was a piece of long wood on two tree stumps that was somewhat sturdy. She used it a lot, though, when she was alone. She thought the chore of working harder to balance on it actually helped her to do better on a regular beam.
As she did her beginning pose, she felt lonely and empty. Her life had melted into this existence … She went down into a back bridge and did a back walkover. Doing it seemed to make some of her stress go away. Then she took a deep breath and took a step back. Jumping into a back handspring, then not stopping as she continued to do a back tuck and land. She missed the beam, her legs falling to the ground. She landed the right way, knowing if she’d have been on a higher beam she could have hurt herself. Gosh! Melissa had that set down, she’d have to be able to nail it and do better if she want
ed to make the team.
She still couldn’t believe Brook was out with Randy right now. Randy was just so … blunt.… He treated most girls like they were just regular conveniences. Every week he’d be out with a different cheerleader, and he’d barely talk or even give them a look when he wasn’t kissing them. They were just there. Not that they minded. Going out with an Applegate boy was like going out with royalty, even walking with them raised eyebrows at school. They were the richest, most handsome boys around here. Even though Ryan was the hottest, Randy was still practically Colin Farrell compared to the other guys in town.
And Ryan had been her friend, long before the rest of the town saw him the way she had always seen him. She brushed the thought away. Thinking about it was pointless.
Now she was thinking about Spencer and Rebecca, and …
She felt the heat come over her, that feeling of her arms falling asleep as they heated up, like her cells had become tiny balls that jumped around inside her uncontrollably. Then just as before when she tried to fight it, she looked at her arms and saw that they were transparent, and glowing that bluish color like electricity.
She was wearing her favorite shorts, and yeah, her legs were not just transparent, they were gone. She jumped down from the beam, feeling herself move more freely, as if she was the same weight as a small cat. She looked around, making sure her dad hadn’t come out.
She started toward the house, needing the water to change her back. The heat feeling of jumpy, tiny molecules in her body was everywhere: in her face, her brain, her eyes, her feet, and even in her hair. She moved quickly and nervously, but then tripped and fell before she could move. She didn’t know how to maneuver, walk, or anything when her body was … whatever it was. She just didn’t feel like she could control it.