Circle the Soul Softly (5 page)

“Absolutely,” David answers. “I'll make sure of it.”

TWELVE

In my new Normal and Connected Life, I'm squished in the backseat of a black BMW with the popular kids of an exclusive private school, after the successful opening of an incredible play in which I played a lead.

Oh wait—it's really true.

We're rehashing the moments—the mistakes as well as the triumphs—and laughing about them all. At least they're rehashing. I'm mostly smiling, but since I'm actually tremendously happy right now, the smile fits. What a breakthrough. Maybe soon I'll have something to say.

David's house is low, long, and large. It wraps almost completely around a pool and pool house with a laid-back kind of feeling. We end up in his rec room, and I realize I'm actually getting used to houses like this—big-screen, flat TV mounted on the wall, pool table, three couches, and a bar. A completely alien world from Santa Rosa, and I'm liking it. David sets out two six-packs of beer and holds up a videotape.

“Oh shit, how'd you do that?” Layla says.

“Yeah, well, what Tess doesn't know, huh?”

“I love this boy,” Frazier announces.

I think I do too. People settle in on the couches or the floor in front. I have one of those horrible moments of not knowing where to sit, but David pats the space next to him. “Come, ‘wife.'” On the way over I do not once even
almost
trip or come
near
to crashing into something. In celebration of that victory, I grab a beer. Normal, right?

“I hate this,” Layla complains. “I cannot stand myself on film.”

“I don't blame you,” Jake teases. She smacks him.

The focus is off in places and you can't see faces clearly, but all in all, the tape isn't too bad. We fast-forward through lots of it, but it's fun, and at least I don't look stupid. I hold the beer in my hand and pretend to sip it a couple of times. David drops his arm around me and I sit there smiling. I try to think if I've said even one word and start to drink the beer for real. It almost makes me gag, it tastes so vile. I make myself chug it, almost half of the whole thing at one time. Stacey's watching. I burp, loudly, and giggle. She toasts me from her side of the couch.

“Omigod,” she says,“maybe you
are
human.”

I smile at her, toast her back, then drink the rest of it down. The room sways slightly and I giggle again—this time at how light-headed I feel. David smiles and hands me another.

I can't concentrate on the TV anymore. My eyes want to close and my head keeps nodding forward. I end up snuggling down inside David's arm, with my head on his chest. I can hear people talking. I feel close to every damn person in this room. We did an amazing show and now we're enjoying ourselves. It's easy to get along with people when you relax.

“Kate?”

I open my eyes and the room swerves like a car around a curve, so I giggle and close them again.“Mm-hmm?” I say.

“Oh man, she's wasted,” Layla says.

“She only had one beer,” Frazier says.

“Why do I think it's her first one ever?” Jake asks.

“Leave her alone, you guys,” David's voice answers. “She'll be fine.”

“Yeah, but her mom said be home by one,” Layla says. “It's quarter to.”

“I don't wanna go home,” I whine, enjoying the fact that words are tumbling out of me, even if they do sound a tiny bit slurred. I love this attention. I love the ease with which I'm getting it. “I wanna pee.”

“I'll take her,” Frazier says, and the next thing I know I'm upright and walking. Then I'm alone in a bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror.

“Whoa.” I say it out loud but it's like someone else is talking. There we are, me and Stupid Kate—and one of us is stuck in the mirror. I giggle as I wonder which one, then I start to disappear. Suddenly dizzy, I slide down to sit on the toilet and hang my head down between my knees. I've slipped over some edge and it isn't fun now. Somehow I manage to finish peeing and get my hands washed and open the door. David's waiting to walk me back.

We settle back on the couch, I lean my head on his chest and drift. Someone calls my mom and tells her the pizza took too long to get there and we're just now starting to eat. I glance up and see everything is normal. The TV is playing some kind of old science fiction. Layla and Stacey and Jake are piled on each other, laughing at it. Frazier and Gabe have gone. The panic drains out and I drift some more.

I dream that David is kissing me.

I wonder what time it is.

I realize David
is
kissing me. And I like it.

“Coffee,” Layla's voice says. David sits me up a little and puts a cup in my hand.“Just sip a little,” she tells me.“It's not too hot.”

I swallow a gulp and make a face.

“You are so cute,” Layla says. “You remind me of me in seventh grade, I swear to God. Doesn't she?” I smile and take another sip of the coffee. I like being cute. I don't know yet about private school double-talk and I think she means it. I almost like being drunk.

“Careful, babe,” David warns, and puts his hand on the side of my head to draw me back to his chest.

“What a good little girl you are, Kate,” Stacey says, that echo of sarcasm in her voice.

“Fuck off, okay?” David says, and strokes my hair back from my face. He leans in to kiss me again. Unfortunately, the coffee isn't compatible with the beer and I'm going to hurl. I scramble up, dash to the bathroom, and vomit my entire gut into the toilet. Do I remember to shut the door? Of course not. Vaguely I'm aware of people piling in behind me, but too bad, I hurl again. Somebody grabs my hair back and flushes the toilet every once in a while, cooing in a low voice,“It's okay, it's okay, Katie, just get it out. Get it out.”

Which I do. Which clears my brain. Which lets me realize how extraordinarily stupid I look. But wait—can I smile now, because this would be a good time to smile? No. I cry. In front of all the people in the world that I want to impress, I sit on the goddamn floor of a bathroom and cry.

“Hey, Katie-Katie, it's no big deal,” Layla says, running a wet washcloth over my face. “Stace does it all the time.” Even Stacey laughs at that one.

The hallway stretches forever and this time the walls are closing in and
the Monster's already used up all the air. Minnie Mouse swoops down
to
save me and suddenly we're floating and I can breathe. I see Michael
below waving but the Monster gobbles him up and Minnie disappears.
I start to fall. The Monster snatches me before I hit the ground and bites
me into two people. One is inside him; the other is outside, screaming.
Minnie swoops in again, but this time she wraps duct tape around my
face, leaving only my eyes connected to the outside.

THIRTEEN

So, the show's over and it's like it never happened; I'm Invisible New Girl again. Amazing True Actor has melted into the cast picture posted on the theater “memory wall,” and I have nothing to say to people I've worked with every day for the past two months. I pretend I don't see Stacey and her bitch-stare. I smile when I run into random objects that everyone else in the entire world is able to miss. I skulk past David,
the guy who was kissing
me
, instead of asking when he's going to call me—
like he said he
would backstage on closing night
. Oh, by the way, which is when he kissed me again.

Ah, Stupid Kate. How I've missed her.

Jake has another party, for Stacey's eighteenth. I am not invited; no doubt Stacey reminded him that all I do at parties is sit around or throw up. Or—substantially worse—he simply didn't remember to think of me. I don't even know about it until after it happens, when everyone who
went
needs to say to everyone who didn't:
“Omigod, you weren't invited??”

I smile and shrug.
Omigod, can't you go die somewhere??

To make the world perfect, Thanksgiving break arrives and Michael flies up to Steve's for the entire
five-
day weekend. I'm stuck at home with an overage glamour queen I used to call “Mom” and a middle-aged man who prances through the house like a horny twelve-year-old. Add the geometry homework from hell, a six-page research paper on a line from a poem by some dead gay guy I've never heard of, and—this is the biggest bummer of all—no show to look forward to.

“Completely sucks” is the descriptive phrase I've chosen.

Somehow I survive Thanksgiving dinner, managing to find random acts of kindness to be thankful for, which I express in the briefest of terms so Mom and Robert can get back to being thankful for each other. After dessert I plead homework and hide in my room to go online. I find a site on schizophrenia and it's actually making a lot of sense on a very personal level, especially the part about “onset with adolescence,” when Layla IMs me to go to a movie with her and then sleep over at her house.

Whoa.

There is no logical reason for her to want to spend time with me. I say I have to check with my mom. She says, “k, cool, let me know.” I sign off and freak out more. What's going on? Does she feel bad Jake didn't invite me to his party? Not likely. Is it some kind of setup? I've seen it done now at school a couple of times, but Layla doesn't seem the type. Maybe everyone else is out of town. I've heard her say how she hates to be in her house alone.

The Universe chuckles at my dilemma: if I go, Stupid Kate will show up and Layla will wish she'd called someone else. I'll become fodder for half-whispered conversations, a guaranteed social disaster. If I don't, I'll be stuck here alone with middle-aged hormones and my own very split personality.

No contest.

I lie and say I'm going out of town. Then I sign off. I'm not in the mood for any more of the outside world, and the big screen downstairs has nine billion channels. Plus there's all that homework to do. And earphones were made for blocking what you don't want to hear.

Here's the list: the two weeks after Thanksgiving are ridiculously busy and I'm probably the only person in the school's history who manages to go from a low B to “watch out, Brainless,” in both geometry and World Civ.

Which makes Robert hire a tutor.

Which effectively eliminates free time after school or in the upcoming winter break.

However! Nightmares are down, I now dress in a relatively cool-yet-individual manner, my hair is looking great—and, oh, about the no free time? It doesn't matter! I have no show, no friends, and no life—I have nothing to do
but
study.

“Wanna ride home?” David says, and I look over my shoulder to see who he's talking to. This is the same David who has not remembered I'm alive the past week or so. He smiles, and suddenly I don't care.“You, Katie. Do you want a ride home?”

“Oh, sorry, I thought . . .” I blush, giggle…. “Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

He tosses my backpack into his car and we slide in. “Hey, where have you been lately?”

“Um …oh, just around.”
Good, Kate—

“School sure sucks, doesn't it?”

“Yeah, um . . .”
Speak!

“So what are you doing over break?”

“Me? Um, not much.”
Why am I so lame?

“Well, I was kinda wondering if maybe you wanna go to Aspen with me?”

“Um …what?” I almost look over my shoulder again, as my heart does this strange little turning over in the chest affair.
I
wonder if he's making fun of me.

“My whole family goes. We have a house and basically just ski and hang out.You have to share a room with my sister but she's cool. What do you think?”

“Uh . . .”
Maybe he means it?

“Hey, if you don't want to, it's okay. I understand.”

“No, no, I mean yeah, yeah. That sounds like fun. Going to Aspen, it sounds good.”

“Excellent. I'll get my mom to call yours.”

This fantasy ends when Mom gets off the phone that evening and huddles with Robert. The Royal
we
appears
.
We acknowledge I'm doing better, emotionally, and that I'm trying to bring up my grades. We admit that going from a public to a private school can be hard. We hint that if David had been a more frequent visitor to the house and if Robert knew his parents (like he knows Jake's, go figure), that we might begin to consider it. But
we're absolutely certain
that we have priorities for winter break that don't include travel with a boy we barely know.

“So does that all make sense?” Mom asks.

“Yeah, it's fine.” I can't tell if I'm mad or relieved. I do, however, smile.

“We just want to do what's best for you,” Robert adds.

“I know.” Disappearing would be a good thing at this point.

“Hey, I got a question,” Michael says, coming around the corner with a bagel in his hand. He plops down on the couch next to me.“What would you say if a girl asked me?”

“That's a little different,” Robert explains.

“Oh.” He takes a bite and finishes his comment with his mouth full. “Okay. Why?”

“Well, for one thing, Katie's younger than you are, and secondly—she's a girl.”

“But his family's going to be there.”

I continue to be amazed by this new brother I've gotten.

“Michael . . .” Mom's wearing her enough-now expression.

“No, really, why can't she go? It's just a week, adults are present, he's a good guy, and she'll have plenty of time for homework.”

Robert sighs and throws the Look at my mom.

“Katie is in danger of flunking geometry, Michael,” Mom says.“And that's the bottom line.”

Michael heads for the stairs. “The
bottom
line
is you don't want her to grow up.” He shrugs at me as he leaves the room. “Sorry, Skates …I tried.”