I'm Not Your Other Half (2 page)

“You know, Michael,” I said, fishing for information, “I wasn't aware you even had a little sister. I thought you were an only child.” I knew nothing whatsoever of Michael's family, but it sounded good.

“This is actually my stepsister,” said Michael. Katurah looked up and regarded him solemnly. “My father remarried last year and Katurah came with the package.”

He and Katurah exchanged a long look and suddenly I liked both of them a lot more. You could feel in that look a lot of compromises—a decision to make the best of a less-than-perfect situation. In Katurah I saw a maturity that I'd never have suspected, and in Michael a generosity and patience that I found very attractive.

I filled out the library information on the card.

Michael talked about school. I was so interested in what he was saying that it was all I could do not to write “4th period, chemistry, Mr. Bermer,” when I meant to enter the phone number.

Of course, Michael was in nothing that I was in. He took some of the same courses, but in a school as large as Chapman, there's quite a selection of chemistry labs and American history classes. He was in Computer Club. I took the required half year of Computer Usage as a sophomore and although I enjoyed it, it certainly didn't inspire me to repeat the experience voluntarily. He was in Cross Country Ski. I detest having cold feet hour after hour.

In Chapman High, it's hard to have overlap unless you plan it. I looked at Michael. The harsh wool of his hunting shirt was almost against my cheek. I thought, Maybe I'll plan a little overlap.

Katurah came over for her library card. “Welcome,” I said formally. “I hope we see you every Thursday.”
And I hope it's always Michael who brings you.

“My name is from the Bible,” said Katurah solemnly. “What's Fraser from?”

Shy children hardly ever volunteer things that fast. I was quite complimented. And it gave me a chance to inform Michael without making a big deal of it.

“Fraser,” I told her, “was my great-great-grandmother's maiden name. My mother came upon it during a genealogy search. She thought it was very attractive, and I was the next child to be born, so I got saddled with it.” Actually it had been my father's genealogy stage, but as usual in their relationship, Mom carried out the work. I doubt that my mother would care if all ancient graveyards were turned into parking lots—she just wanted to do whatever Dad was doing.

“My name is boring,” said Michael. “But I like Fraser. How come your mother didn't name you by your great-great-grandmother's first name instead?”

“Because her first name was Viola Maude. Even my mother realized that it would be hard to go through life in contemporary America with a name like Viola Maude.”

“Viola Maude,” whispered Katurah. “I love that name, Fraser. If I get a new doll for Christmas, I'm going to call her Viola Maude.”

Michael teased her gently about Christmas and Santa and the odds on getting a doll that could be named Viola Maude. I could not take my eyes off his sweet smile and his firm features. He had a longish nose, a rather dramatic profile for a soft-spoken person.

I have hazel eyes, but last year I got green-tinted contact lenses. It makes my eyes startlingly bright, a green not found in nature. Although I like it (and I love contacts; they make me feel so much prettier than my old glasses), I'm sometimes embarrassed by my eyes.

Michael glanced at me, and suddenly I felt like a doll named Viola Maude, a porcelain doll with eyes too green, staring glassily out from behind too-long black eyelashes.

I began blushing. Must look like a Christmas tree, I thought. Scarlet and green.

Michael said, “Are you going to the football game on the chartered bus Saturday?”

Our high school sends a great many graduates on to State, and there's quite a strong State following. Each home football game, the high school charters a bus. You can sign up for the season or for a single game. I don't care enough for football to bother with the whole season, but Annie and I always go once. We had, indeed, chosen this Saturday. “Yes, I am,” I told him.

Michael smiled again, and I drowned in the smile, but he didn't notice. He stood up, taking Katurah's hand. “That'll be nice,” he said. “I'll see you there. Thanks for helping my sister.”

“You're welcome,” I said.

“Goodbye, Fraser.” He said it nicely, with the
zh
sound I use, instead of the
z. Frazhure.
It's softer that way, less demanding of a person who expected you to be named Susan or Kimberley.

A little girl took home a Noisy Number Robot Electronic Teacher, and a little boy went for a Rough Rider Impossible Super Devil Roadway Loop, and then it was time to close up. Annie was laughing a rippling chuckle that kept on going, like a brook. “Do you have a problem?” I said mildly.

“No. You do. Your crush is developing like a car at the Indianapolis Speedway, Fraser. Zero to one hundred in sixty seconds.”

“You know,” she said over the phone, “I was jealous that night.”

“You
were
?” Impossible to imagine Annie having unpleasant thoughts about me or anyone else. “It didn't show.”

“I could just see you with the perfect boy. Off you'd go, dancing down the sand, your honey hair flying in the breeze, your hand in his, laughing together. I'd be stranded there without a boy. Alone and cold.”

I shivered slightly before I laughed it off. More than once, the same scene had appeared in my mind. About our friendship and what could happen to it if one of us started dating and the other did not. All those offerings in the gazebo paid off, I thought. We've not only started dating terrific boys—we're
double
dating them.

“We,” said Annie contentedly, “will be chapter nine of every paperback romance we ever read. Where the laughing foursome sits in the booth at the ice-cream parlor, their heads close together. There's always a photograph like that in the yearbook.”

Annie and I talked till nearly midnight, while I twirled the cord and jumped mentally.
Fraser and Michael, sitting in a tree, k, i, s, s, i, n, g.

As surely as spring follows winter, I thought, life will be better for having the boys in it. Annie and I will be like flowers in the sun, full of color and joy.

I did not remember then that not all flowers bloom at once. Some of them fade and die.

S
ATURDAY WAS COLD. THE
thermometer was in the high teens when we assembled at the school to get on the bus. Presumably there was a sun in the sky, but it seemed very far away. In another galaxy, perhaps. The sky was the color of lint—white, gray and limp. The wind came in gusts and penetrated to the marrow of our bones.

The front of Chapman High is beautiful—three stories of brick, with immense stone columns and finely proportioned stone steps. Unfortunately, buses load in the back, where there are no rows of softly swaying hemlocks, no gentle brick walls, no delicate tracery of birch and dogwood. Just a parking lot, a row of dumpsters and a generator in a wire enclosure. The pavement is pockmarked from last winter's frost heaves, and pieces of newspaper blow in the wind.

I had brought along a fat old quilt, and Annie had a holey old Army blanket. I wanted to wrap up in my quilt right out there in the parking lot, but pride prevented me. Pride also prevented me from putting on my tie hat. My ears get cold easily, and I still get the ear infections that other people outgrew when they were four years old. In windy cold weather I can either wear a hat that covers my ears, or I can make an appointment with my doctor.

The hat that works for me is plain gray wool, with a soft flannel liner, that hangs in two long fat ribbons like the ears of a very tired bunny. The ties loop under my chin, and I feel stupid and matronly wearing it. But I've tried everything else. Ear muffs slip off; ear flaps aren't tight enough; scarves are too thick to tie under the chin.

There was no way I would have Michael's first judgment of me include the gray bunny hat, so I was standing there with my ears turning red, wishing he would hurry up so I could make a good impression on him and
then
put on the hat.

The bus arrived.

Not the usual stylish one with corduroy upholstery and its own bathroom. A regular yellow school bus. Annie moaned. “For this we paid good money? Lumps and cold vinyl? We won't drive to the University. We'll lurch.”

I was too cold for a wisecrack about the resemblance to her own driving. The fillings in my teeth hurt whenever I opened my mouth. I was resigned to the school bus. School inures you to certain forms of torture.

Annie hopped up and down as the cold moved through her sneakers. She was wearing flannel-lined jeans with the extra turns to compensate for her lack of height, and she had thick fuzzy ankles of red plaid. Her shirt was red wool, over a red-heart-dotted turtleneck, and her ski jacket was electric blue. I was almost entirely in green, with a few scraps of white to offset it. We were a very colorful pair.

I had washed my hair twice (the first time I blew it dry, it came out in peculiar stiff tendrils), and when I left the house, it was hanging in soft, lightly tucked waves, but now the wind had snarled and matted it. Hurry up, Michael, I thought.

I shifted the picnic case. Thick, padded, soft vinyl, filled with yummy food and four soft drinks.

“We should have brought a thermos of something hot instead,” said Annie, shivering violently. “How much do we really want to go to this football game anyhow?”

“A lot,” I told her.

Annie grinned. Her tiny even teeth gleamed. Both of us had worn braces for years. We always notice teeth, because we respect the pain involved acquiring good ones. “We might as well board. If we don't get seats now we'll end up having to sit over the wheels.” We shuffled toward the bus.

“Can't be that heavy,” said Michael's teasing voice.

Even before I lifted my eyes, my heart lifted. It was as though the heavy, somber cold of the day had vanished, and we were somewhere in Bermuda—white sand, blue sky, soft warm sun and all the hours on earth to spare.

“We're heavy eaters,” I told him.

Michael looked unconvinced. “You?” he said, nodding his chin at my slim legs. All of me is slim, which is fine if it's ankles, less so if it's shoulders and chest. My face is narrow too, but I like to think it's elegant, especially the new way I'm wearing my hair, swept back like combed honey.

Michael took the picnic carrier from me and held it up with one finger.

“Show off,” I said. “Fitness freak.”

We grinned at each other.

“Hi, there, Fraser,” said another voice. “Hi, Annie.”

Standing next to Michael was Price Quincy. It was all I could do not to say, “Oh, shit. You.” I bit back the words. Annie was saying, “Why, Price, great to see you” and so I said, “Price, how've you been?” trying not to sound gloomy.

I did not care how Price had been and I hoped he would not tell us. Price is a reasonably attractive person in the flesh and in some ways in the personality. But he's wild in that borderline way that makes me nervous. No thought of consequences. No concern for people. Just doing whatever is exciting at the moment.

Some girls are very attracted to that. They like the idea of a guy having a six-pack and then driving over the school field doing wheelies. I can only think, Yes, and what if you go home and take the curve at the bottom of Chapel Street at fifty miles an hour and some little kid like Kit Lipton happens to be crossing the street?

“You were smart to bring food,” said Price. “Saves money.”

“Mostly it saves time,” said Annie. “My time is too valuable to waste standing in line.”

Price laughed, his eyes on Annie. Now, I certainly check boys out, and I certainly think Annie is a girl worth checking out, but it's different when you actually watch the eyeballs trace the body and you know they're wishing for no fabric between them and the full nude view. I felt slightly sick and turned to see how Michael was looking at me.

He wasn't. He was looking at the bus.

Thanks a lot, I thought indignantly. I mean, you could at least show a
little
interest.

“I knew I should have brought a thicker coat,” he said. “I always need padding on those buses.”

“We brought two blankets,” I told him. “We reupholster any bus we ride in. You want to share?”

There was the briefest of pauses, as if we were all calculating something on invisible calculators. Price said, “How about Annie and I take the Army blanket there and you and Michael take the—whatever that thing is.”

“This is a Depression quilt,” I informed Price stiffly. “It is an honor to sit on it, so it's just as well you realized you deserve only an old Army blanket in standard olive drab.”

“A Depression quilt?” repeated Price. The quilt was ugly, in fat blocks of dark brown, striped gray and rusty black. “Is it supposed to start up your depression or clear it?” he asked.

“This quilt,” I said, “was made by my great-grandmother during the Depression out of old worn-out men's suits in the church charity box. It's stuffed with pieces of old coats and it wasn't meant to be pretty. It was meant to keep them warm when they couldn't afford to heat the bedrooms.”

Michael looked at it with genuine interest. Price shrugged and led Annie onto the bus to reserve seats. What a sacrifice for Annie, I thought, having to share Price's company. “Your great-grandmother,” said Michael. “That would be Viola Maude Fraser's daughter?”

I was immeasurably delighted. Of course it was only two days, and Michael didn't have a wind cavern behind his eyes. But it was quite a compliment, his keeping track of my ancestry.

Price and Annie were five seats behind the driver. It took me one step to pass them to slip into the sixth seat; one second was all I had to look at Price and Annie; and one moment was all I needed. They were framed in that curious way couples have. Heads coming together, slightly bowed, the same sort of intimacy of hands about to touch.