Invisible Girl (10 page)

While I have the refrigerator open, I realize I’m thirsty and pretty tired so I open a can of Coke for the caffeine. I slurp down a little and then focus on the briefcase. It’s deep brown leather with gold clasps. I don’t think they’re locked because I’ve seen Uncle Michael go in and out of it and have never seen him use a little key.

I press the gold buttons out to the side and hear a faint click. Excitement beats in my chest and I cross my fingers before I open the top. The case he’s working on is all in folders. I’m not sure which document to start with so I just take the one off the top. It says “Interrogatories.” I start reading, waiting to hear the story of who wants what. I’d rather look for a person than an heirloom or something, but I’ll take what I can get.

What I’m reading must not be connected to the case because it just has numbers that keep asking for things I don’t understand. Maybe it’s just some kind of legal bill. I take a long sip of my Coke. The next document is something I don’t understand either. I dig down farther to find pictures of the missing person or the lost jewels.

I’ve gotten to the bottom of the briefcase. Things are not working out. There are no pictures here at all. I grab another manila envelope to look through and my Coke falls right onto the “Interrogatories.” Soda gushes out.

I’m in so much shock that it takes me a minute to move. Then I pick up the can and hurry out toward the kitchen to get some paper towels. I think I hear a noise from upstairs so I immediately stop my mouth breath and just suck in tiny bits of air through my nose. I try to make my nostrils tiny slits like this old woman’s I saw in church. I wait with my knife-cut nostrils until I’m sure no one is coming down from upstairs.

I start moving again and steal into the kitchen. I have a little light from the moon outside so I fumble around until I finally hit a shadowy roll of paper towels. I grab a bunch of them and then hurry back into the laundry room.

I hear a toilet flush from upstairs so I’m afraid to open the refrigerator door in case the person upstairs will notice a sliver of light. I just wipe frantically in the dark, my heart pounding with fear. The pages are soaked and have already started to get bumps in them. I wipe harder and harder, hoping that somehow I’m getting it all. When it feels dry, I close the briefcase and put it back exactly where it was. I stuff the wet paper towels in the trash under the sink and creep out of the laundry room and up the stairs.

I crawl back into bed and lie there with my hand on my chest, pushing down on my skin, trying to get my heart to stop pounding. I try to sleep but just seem to twist and turn for hours, dread keeping me awake, hearing, just as I start to drift, the small click of the briefcase as the golden latches click open.

CHAPTER NINE

I have no idea what time it is, but I can tell it’s late because I can hear Annie screaming, “Eeeww, these blueberries are moldy.” She never gets up before ten so it must be after that. I had thought maybe I would get up early and confess about the briefcase, but by now Uncle Michael will be long gone. I push away pictures of him in a nice wood-paneled office with all his diplomas behind him on the wall, opening up his briefcase to find those sticky papers. I’m starting to hope that maybe he won’t need to go in it all day, or maybe, since I wiped up all the Coke, they really won’t be sticky, just a little wrinkled and he won’t even notice.

I throw on some shorts and a shirt and go downstairs. Annie stares out at the patio while she spears watermelon from a glass bowl like she hates each piece. I try to think of a girl comment, like something Leslie would say. Nothing comes to mind until I remember Annie’s broken up with JKIII so I say, “You still bummed about John?”

She brightens just a spot as if she’d given up on me as a girlfriend last night but now thinks maybe I was just tired. Daniel and Patrick lumber by with surfboards and faded sweatshirts, and Annie leans forward to keep our conversation exclusive. I feel a thrill whipping out through the end of my fingertips. I am, for a moment, at the epicenter of belonging. I am the queen’s confidant.

“He left a message on my cell last night. I would have played it for you, but you, like, ran up the stairs when my mom and I were getting ice cream.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and purses her lips into a slight pout so I can be reminded of how I failed her.

I lower my head slightly, remorseful for ignoring the queen’s needs.

“Anyway,” she continues, “he said he was really sorry, and was I mad at him for making that bonehead comment about this new girl being so hot and did I want to play tennis today.”

I help myself to a bowl of watermelon Carmen has silently put before me. I’m glad Annie hasn’t declared it a diet day. I also take a cinnamon bun from the tray Carmen has left for us. “So, are you going to play tennis with him?”

She tosses her head back and smirks. “That’s for me to know and him to keep guessing.”

I take my first bite of the cinnamon bun. I’ve never tasted anything like this. For a second I’m almost dizzy with the succulence of the hot icing hitting the roof of my mouth, and I close my eyes and take another bite. When I open them, Annie is staring at me.

“In love with the cinnamon bun,” she says rudely, and I’m horribly ashamed, as if it’s obvious to her I’ve never sampled the likes of which rise so easily and plentifully on her table.

“They’re just a little different here than at home,” I say, dropping my bun as if it’s poison. “Our housekeeper always uses a thicker frosting, like it has some kind of cheese in it.”

She’s not even paying any attention to me. I feel a desperate need for her to know that I’m not impressed with her cinnamon buns, for her to know I’ve had lots and lots of them. That my kitchen is fragrant in the morning with baking and sliced fruit, and not messy and sticky with stale gin and dirty ashtrays.

She’s already stood up, and suddenly I’m afraid that if I open my mouth at all, I’ll burst into tears, and how will I explain that?

She hurries out to the patio, where she grabs our bathing suits that are now dry and hang over a low brick wall in the spot between the purple and red vines. We walk into the garage and get on our bikes, and I notice Annie doesn’t take her tennis racket.

We pedal fast, especially up the last hill to the club. For a second, my paralyzing anxiety descends again about putting on the bathing suit. Then I remember that everyone’s already seen me in it and I’ll just come up with more interesting stories about being a kind of Kennedy.

We lock our bikes at the rack. I follow Annie’s quick walk inside the club. Gray clouds press over the pool, squeezing out the blue. Humidity curls the ends of my hair. A glint of cool sharpens the air, and goose bumps rise up on my arm from a slice of breeze.

It feels as if something dangerous might happen today, like maybe motorcycle boys will screech into the club and beat up Annie’s rich-kid friends, or someone will get hit on the head just before they dive into the pool, and one of the moms will scream, “Does anyone know CPR?”

Annie grabs a Diet Coke from the snack bar so I do too, even though I like regular. We head up the redwood stairs. There are no adults on the sundeck today and music blasts like fists. We make our way to the far end of the deck where huge pines make a fragrant wall of green. I try to imitate Annie’s walk, where her waist leads and her hips swing out. Eva and Emily are already lathered up with suntan lotion, lying on their towels. Leslie stands at the edge of the deck, tanned and plump in a white bikini, sneaking a cig.

I scan the boys, trying to act like I’m not. I see Andrew and I know my face is turning beet red, so I look away quickly and say, “Hi” to the first person I see. It turns out to be Carl. This is not good because I have a fake smile on my face and Carl could think I’m smiling at him because I kissed him last night in Bump Around and that I like him.

I lose the smile.

Annie and I drop our towels next to Emily and Eva. Brian and Matt are staring at the girls’ backs, acting like they keep finding spots where the girls forgot to put suntan lotion, even though it’s so cloudy they probably don’t need it at all. Brian touches a total inner-thigh area on Emily and goes, “Yup, it’s gonna fry. Maybe if I could just put a little lotion on it for you.”

Emily squeals and swipes his hand away, and I hope by the end of the summer I’ll be able to squeal like that.

Ben, the guy who did the finger thing with Leslie, comes up the sundeck and tosses her a bag of chips, and it’s funny how it’s cool to eat junk instead of meals when you’re rich, but sad if you’re poor and your mother burns any meal she tries to make because she’s too drunk.

Leslie drops her cigarette onto the ground and steps on it with her sandal. It’s brown with a little jewel strap and I figure it must have cost a couple hundred dollars. She picks up the cigarette butt and tosses it into the redwood garbage container, and then walks over to us with her fingers poking into Ben’s shoulder like she’s trying to see if he has a sunburn.

Ben has shaggy blond hair and plays air guitar. He gives Leslie a kiss right on the lips and says to her, “I gotta take a leak.” When he gets to the stairs I ask Leslie if she thinks I should lie out first on my back or my stomach.

I’m waiting for her to examine the front and back of my legs like she did for Emily yesterday to compare the tans. Instead she just goes, “Whatever,” and I feel humiliated and cheated, furious at Ben for diverting her attention from what I thought was trusted girl stuff.

Annie lies on her stomach and unhooks her bathing suit top. A voice from behind us says, “Need help with the lotion?” and I don’t have to turn to know it’s JKIII.

“Stephanie will do it,” Annie says loftily and I scuttle over to her like a trained puppy.

I pour out the lotion carefully, happier about my job when I see Eva looking over, irritated that she wasn’t asked. I rub the white lotion on Annie’s glistening skin until it is perfectly melded with her tan, an invisible armor against sunburn in case the sun comes out.

I use my thumb to push the little opening of the top of the lotion closed and Annie’s lids drop, dismissing me. My face shows nothing of the slight as I fall onto my towel and rub lotion on the front of my legs.

I wanted to lie on my stomach to keep my chest shielded from view because it flattens out even more when I’m lying on my back, but no one has asked me if I need lotion on my back, and I don’t know who to ask. No one ever asks Annie to put lotion on them, and I would eat glass before I asked Eva.

JKIII lies right on the deck next to Annie’s head. It’s obvious he wishes he could speak to her privately, but she clearly isn’t done punishing him yet. I finish putting lotion on my stomach and arms, then lie back and close my eyes. I don’t want to miss a word. The stakes are high; she already let him put his hand in her pants.

“So, did you get my message last night?” he asks.

“Um, I think I did. I didn’t have my cell with me and I got home pretty late and there were, like, ten of them to listen to.” Her voice is lazy, unconcerned. I wonder if I’ll ever get to act like I don’t like a boy I do like and who likes me back.

“I really miss you,” he says in an even quieter voice. “I was hoping we could play tennis today,” he continues when she doesn’t say anything.

I feel movement beside me. She sits up. “Bummer, I didn’t bring my racket,” she says, then adds, “But I’m soooo thirsty. I’d love it if you got me another Diet Coke.”

I’m dying to see the look on his face, and I can feel the other girls waiting for his reply. I lift my lids just a fraction so I can get a read on where the other boys are standing. I know vaguely that their ability to hear this conversation will weigh into his decision to comply. I do a full scan of the deck. None of the other guys could have heard Annie’s request.

JKIII is silent for a minute. Annie, his prize, shimmers just out of reach, attainable only with his total submission in getting the Diet Coke. More clouds bunch in the sky while he weighs and considers. I already know what he will do.

“I’m totally parched,” he announces getting to his feet. “Can I get any of you ladies anything?”

I open my eyes fully now and sit up. My “No, thanks” slides out of my throat, skipping up to him over Annie’s face, which is beaming in a smile of the purest pleasure.

I pour more lotion into my hands because I want to look busy and not like I’m waiting for somebody to say something. Out of the corner of my eye I see Andrew walk over to our towels. I want to quickly lie back down and close my eyes so I can be lazy and disinterested if he says anything to me because of his kiss with Eva last night, but it’s too late. He already saw my eyes looking at his.

When he stops in front of my towel and says, “Morning, Senator,” I can’t help but smile and say, “Hey.”

I can’t see Eva’s face, but a bottle of lotion comes flying from her towel right at his chest. He catches it. “You’re blocking my sun,” she says to him.

He barely looks at her and just says, “Sorry,” then drops down at the end of my towel. “You going to Mulholland tonight?” he asks me.

I have no clue how to flip my hair so I just shrug and keep my voice as Annie-like as possible. “Maybe.”

He looks frustrated, like he thought I was going to say something smart like I did the other day and instead I acted all girly. I’m totally confused so now I say in my normal voice, “Probably.”

“Good,” he says and does a friendly squeeze of my big toe like you would on a baby’s cheek. “I’ll see you there. I’m going to get my cast off right now.”

He stands up and ambles off. My toe soars to the clouds, taking me with it, when Annie’s voice cuts like diamonds, “
Who
is that?”

I turn to look in the direction she’s looking. Two girls have come up the deck. One is not much taller than I am, sort of plain with long, dusty red hair. The other girl is as tall as Annie, and she is a dark goddess of unparalleled curves and bounty. They walk to our end of the sundeck and I can’t take my eyes off of her breasts, which are winged and wide and fill up the front of her one-piece bathing suit in such an effulgence of fertility, I expect drums to be beaten and every male in the club to leap forward in worship.