Cameo (4 page)

There was a gaping hole on my wall of pictures. A hole I hadn't closed just yet. Like the hole in my heart. As smoothly as things had gone earlier, it was apparent that I wasn't ready to fill my heart either. But right there, between the picture of me and Cindy dressed like chic pirates for Halloween and the picture of me and the inside of a locker decorated with rainbows and My Little Ponies was a space. That was sophomore year. Every so often, I liked to be reminded that I was once sweet enough to like My Little Pony. I thought I spotted Craig's hand in a picture of me and a group of girls in the lunchroom so I took the picture down. Those girls weren't girls at all. They were wenches who
dumped me right along with Craig. That space in the wall was my inspiration. Never again would I fool myself into thinking anything in high school could be real.

My mom knocked on my door. Before I could say “open,” there was her head peeking in.

“Goodnight, Nee,” she said.

“Goodnight, Mom.” I hugged my mom for all the trying she did. She was really down, but I would never tell her that. She closed the door. She left me to my CDs and my mirror. So, okay, I admit sometimes I liked to pretend I was in my own music video. Ah, but I just needed a cup of water. I never go to bed without a cup of water. Just as I was walking to the door, my mother knocked again. She popped in with a gleaming glass of fresh spring water in hand. She left the door open.

“My cameo lover, my cameo lover. You came to make a cameo in my life. Used to love the way you smile then go bye-bye,” I sang into the mirror.

I only really knew the first two sentences of the song but, hey, I was on beat and sounding kind of good. Rewind. “My cameo lover, my cameo …” I went to my door and looked down the long hallway both ways. If my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, someone had just run past my room and giggled. Ew-u, who giggles “he, he, he”? It was so weird. Was that supposed to be sinister? I couldn't believe I was attempting to rationalize this. It would be preposterous even if it were true. Suffice it to say that was the last I played the CD that night.

Maybe my mom had run down the hall. I ran through our narrow hallway to my mother's room. I knocked on her door, desperate for an answer. “Did you run down the hall?”

“What?”

“I thought for a second, this is going to sound crazy, but I just saw someone run past my room and giggle.”

She rubbed her eyebrows. That was the signal that she was too tired for this nonsense. “I will check the house, but I am sure no one ran past your room and giggled.” She mocked me with air quotations around the word “giggled.” She went down the hall to check the closets and the guest bedroom. She turned on all the lights. She went downstairs.

I knew what she was really thinking. Why couldn't I be like other teenage girls, in my room text messaging my boyfriend until sunrise and leaving my parents to sleep? No, I had to be the karaoke singing type of girl who caught every detail of every little thing.

“You know we have an alarm. I put it on when I went to get your glass of water,” she said as she walked up the stairs. I pulled back the heavy sea-blue curtains on her windows. Her room had an ocean-inspired theme. Everything in it was the color of the ocean or the plants and coral reef.

“Just sleep here tonight,” she said.

I looked out the other window on the other side of her room. All I could see was the neighbor's back yard. I wondered just what this giggling fool looked like. I remembered overalls and a black turtleneck. I think the face was black, too. Like a ski mask? Doubt had the best of me. I was too scared to think about what it would mean if I was right. Yet being wrong could mean I needed psychiatric help. Who would dream up some sort of giggling, farmer creep running past her door?

Huh, yet another thing that separated me from the general population.

“Do you have a pen?” Cindy asked Peter as she flipped her hair to one side and brushed back the stray hairs with her fingers.

“Uh … oh.” He could barely form a word. He scrambled through his junky backpack and pulled out a fancy pen. It looked practically new. I guess he'd been saving it for something special.

“Right here.” Cindy pointed to a spot right above her collar bone. She pulled her camisole strap off her shoulder to show more skin. Cindy tilted her neck as Peter snuggled up against her to write his phone number above her collar bone. He smiled the whole time.

“You smell good,” Peter said.

Please! As if that wasn't the most trite flirting line ever uttered by a boy.

“Like what?” Cindy asked as she pulled her shirt strap back onto her shoulder. She was playing him like a violin. She knew exactly what strings to pluck. And like the many before him, he was melting in the palm of her hand. She had tried to teach me how to play guys like that. It wasn't quite my style. That and I wasn't such a quick study when it came to flirting. But the makeup details I had down pat. We always wore a little bit of base, black mascara, and black eyeliner inside the eye only. Guys couldn't tell the difference—they just thought you had great skin and dark eyes. To me, the look was just as important as the flirt. Plus, I didn't like to work for a date. I preferred my date to work for me. In other words, I always played hard to get.

I couldn't help but turn my attention to the two freshman girls wearing step team uniforms—the T-shirts that said
STEP TEAM
were a dead giveaway. What were these girls whispering about? Probably Cindy and Peter. For freshman girls, senior boys were like the dating jackpot. I began to fidget with the books in my locker. I really had no reason to keep it open, but I wanted to know more about what was on their minds.

“Where is it?” I said to myself. I rummaged through my locker, looking for the mysterious thing that was supposedly missing. Then I heard it! Just when I thought all the whispers had been quelled.

“Michelle. Yeah! She stole her boyfriend,” one girl said. I couldn't make out every detail, but whatever they were whispering was definitely about me. What in the heck gave them the right to go around spreading rumors?

I slammed my locker shut. The freshman neophytes just stood there staring at me.

“That happened like a month ago!” I said. I was so tired of defending myself. “Close your mouths. That's not very ladylike.”

Surprisingly, they did as I said. “You know, that jacket is fire on you,” I whispered coyly. From the looks on their faces, I had just gone from a name to an experience. Talk about that! Sometimes I even surprised myself. There are times when the only way to combat negative energy is with a compliment.

Next thing I knew, Cindy was nestled in the corner with Peter hovering over her. “Call me with the details,” I texted her. “Absolutely,” she texted back. I guess it was me and the bus today.

Outside, I walked up the block alone. Usually there were masses of kids walking home or to the burger spot on the corner. Most of the kids were well on their way by now. Whatever about the anonymous school kids, I was still trying to shake off what had happened the night before.

“So, we meeting up today?” an unmistakable voice said.

There he was looking like he was straight out of a varsity calendar in a short-sleeved shirt, showing just enough of his muscles to make you look. He pulled his cherry-red Mustang convertible over and jumped out. I was a little nervous, not to mention slightly annoyed. I was hoping to have
some time to myself to sort things out. I wasn't sure what to do—stop and talk or keep walking. I chose the latter.

“What makes you think that I don't have plans? I'm not your garden-variety type of nerd. I'm a hybrid. Evolved,” I said.

“Sophisticated. I get it.”

“I could be doing something this evening that I have to get prepared for,” I said.

He jumped back into his car and drove beside me, following me. “All right, I wasn't trying to be weird. I didn't know,” he said.

“Oh, no, I'm not busy. It's just a possibility. The kind of thing you would never know if you didn't ask. … Why do you look so confused?” I asked.

“I am. You said something about preparing,” he said.

“Forget that, you can meet me at my house,” I said.

“Well, get in. I'll drive.”

“No. Thanks. My bus pass works just fine.”

“Stop playing.”

“I'm not playing.”

“I'm staying here until you get in.”

“Well, that won't be long. Here's the bus. Maybe you should get out of the bus stop,” I said.

He shrugged and pulled out.

The bus doors closed behind me. I showed my pass and that was it. I was free to sit anywhere. I picked a seat by the window on the side where the sun was shining. Me and the sun, it was special. Sometimes I felt like sitting in the sunlight melted all the crazy stuff away. Little did I know that the one seat available on that side of the bus had a blinding view of the sun. After retreating to the comfort
of my big, dark sunglasses, my eyes landed on Jason. He was driving alongside the bus. Although I tried to read my English Lit book, the sharper faculties of my brain seemed more focused on whether or not anyone could see my eyes through my shades than Thoreau. I couldn't help but sneak a peak at him at every red light and sometimes in between. I caught him looking up at the bus every once in a while. I quickly turned my head, so that my neck craned in his direction wouldn't give me away.

I wondered if he knew which bus stop I got off at. My stop was next. When I looked out the window, he was gone. I wish I could say I was relieved, but I try not to be too self-delusional. I mean, we all lie to ourselves at one point or another—sometimes for our own good, or to protect our ego, or to ease the hurt of a bad memory. But to do it on a daily basis could be dangerous, I think. Sometimes I feel like a thirty-year-old psychologist living in a teenager's body.

I was off the bus and heading up my block. The bus had long passed me by and was well on its way to the next stop. The exhaust of the bus had cleared. I looked over my shoulder casually. I guess I was expecting that he would be there, riding alongside me, but he wasn't. Oh, well. The closer I got to my house, the more vivid the image of the red coupe parked in front of my neighbor's house became. Suddenly I found myself walking at light speed. Great! The last thing I needed to do was speed walk from the bus stop. He would only think I was rushing to my door to see him.

There was really no way of walking to my door without passing him.

“Hey,” he said as he jumped out of the car.

“Hello,” I said. I noticed my mother's car was in the driveway. Great.

“Do you want to study?” he asked.

Hadn't I already invited him over? “You're here, right? Might as well make the best of it,” I said. I could feel my heart skip a beat when I let him through the door. This was all wrong, but it was sort of hard to be mad at him all the time.

I brought my laptop into the living room so we could do some research.

“Nia,” my mother said. I wondered if I ignored her she would just leave me alone. “Nia.” She hurried into the living room. Behind her, my little cousin, Lacey, followed. “There you are, honey. Studying today?”

“Yes, Mom. Jason, this is my mother and my little cousin, Lacey,” I said.

Jason shook my mother's hand. “How are you, ma'am?” he asked.

“I'm fine. Call me Ms. Stevens,” she said.

“How are you, Lacey?” Jason shook her hand too. He was weird.

“Just fine, thank you.”

Oh, gosh, had I just seen my little cousin bat an eye?

“Why don't you get Jason some of your peach cobbler?” my mother insisted.

“Jason, um, I can get you a piece,” I said.

“Nah, we can finish this. Maybe later we can get some,” he said.

An instant messenger screen popped up on my computer. Gary66 wanted to add me to his buddy list. I thought I blocked him the other day. I closed out the window quickly. Then my computer just shut off. Jason and I looked at each other. Somehow, my mother and Lacey had found their way out of my space. It was a miracle.

“You could just turn it back on,” Jason said.

“It was plugged in. Why would it just die?” I said.

“Calm down. There is nothing wrong with it,” Jason said.

“I didn't say there was. But we need the Internet to work.” I turned the computer back on. Some strange screen I'd never seen before came up. Something on my C-drive was corrupted. I had to run a repair program before it would complete the boot-up.

“I have that virus software on my computer too. It's a good program,” he said.

“Thanks.” It took every shred of restraint I had for me not to break out into a full panic. I had everything on my laptop. For a minute or two, I couldn't move. I couldn't believe it had just shut down like that. Just when I thought my vision of the snickering farmer was my worst nightmare.

“This could be okay, right? I mean, this program running is a good sign?” I said.

“Be cool,” Jason said.

“I run a virus scan every week! What happened?”

“Maybe it has something to do with that instant message,” Jason said.

“I don't even know that person. I have two firewalls on this computer!” I said.

“Just let the computer do its thing. I have this program. It'll be fine. Trust me.”

I dropped my head in my hands. I needed to think. This was crazy. Five minutes ago, everything was fine. I was just so nervous. I had even started typing some of the work for our report. I had it saved on my computer. It felt like all of a sudden my laptop had me by the jugular.

“What about some peach pie?” Jason asked.

“What? At a time like this?” I asked.

Jason sighed.

“It's cobbler anyway,” I said.

“Yes, that's it, cobbler,” Jason said.

I couldn't stop starring at my computer.