Same Difference (9780545477215) (11 page)

At the field, I see everyone from our high school. Meg and I spread out our blanket. Meg has a picnic basket all prepared for us. It's, like, perfect. Cubes of cheese, crackers, prosciutto, and melon. A few people stop by to say hello as the field continues to get darker. The band squeaks and toots and drums its way through a warm-up. Meg and I light up two gold sparklers and swirl them through the thick, muggy air. I like the way the color burns into your eyes, leaving a trail like a ghost.

When it gets too dark to see, everything settles. People find their way back to their blankets. I sit down at the edge of the blanket and pull my arms inside my halter. Rick kneels on the other side and motions for Meg to sit between his legs.

“Emily's cold,” she says, shaking her head. “Let's keep her warm.”

“I'm okay, really,” I say.

“It's fine, Emily,” Meg says and practically pushes me into the middle of her and Rick.

I'm suffocated between them. I almost wish Claire was here, or that I was on the blanket with my family.

The band kicks into “America the Beautiful” and the fireworks start. I have to say, they're less amazing than I remember them to be. Spaced out. One blossom at a time.

I shift my eyes from the sky to the ground and watch the colored light dance along the grass and against the backs of the people sitting in front of us, and fight off the loneliness. I want to memorize the way the light looks for my sketchbook. My fingers twitch. I wish I was drawing.

E
ven though Fiona technically lives in Philadelphia, her neighborhood, Fish Town, is still really far away from the part of the city where the university is. She gave me directions that included a train and two buses, but I was afraid I'd be late, so I just took a taxi once I got into the city. Mom gave me extra money, since I'd told her it was a field trip, too. Otherwise, I doubt she'd have let me come.

The cab pulls up to Fiona's address. She's standing in her driveway, rinsing her hair with a garden hose. The pink is gone. A river of electric blue water rolls off the long strip and down the divide between the driveway and the grass.

“Wow! You're dyeing your hair.” I try to hide the disappointment in my voice, because I loved the pink.

“I got bored.” She squeezes the water out. “My mom doesn't let me do this in the bathroom because these vegetable dyes stain the tile grout. I don't mind so much in the summertime, but it's too freaking cold to use this hose on my head in the middle of winter.”

As Fiona goes to shut off the water from a spout near the stairs, I glance around. Fiona doesn't have a house but an apartment. It's a big redbrick building with a wooden steeple up on the very top, which makes me think it was some kind of factory or maybe even a church before it became an apartment building. Broken glass sparkles on the curb in front of it. Thick black wires hang slacked and sloppy across the street, and it looks so unprofessional that it makes you think it was done illegally or by someone who just didn't care.

I follow Fiona inside. We walk down a long hallway with apartment doors on either side and take a staircase up a few flights. On the walls hang black-and-white photos of the building back in the day, with lines of men and women in starched white clothes posing in front of big white trucks.

“This place was an old washhouse,” Fiona explains. “All the rich people from Center City would send their laundry here.” We reach the end of the hallway and stand in front of a large red door. “Our apartment used to be the president's office. It's nice because it has two floors. I hate apartments on all the same floor. They're like coffins.”

We step inside the apartment, and it does seem bigger than I thought it would. But I don't get a chance to look around. We pass the kitchen and immediately charge up the stairs and into her bedroom. I'm right behind Fiona as she opens the door, because I'm so excited to see inside.

The room is like an attic, with vaulted ceilings, and two tiny, four-panel windows perched up high, with deep windowsills that act as shelves. One is full of half-burnt religious candles with Spanish names. She has Christmas lights strung around the door. The wood floor is covered in splattered paint. Japanese candies and paper lanterns are piled in the corner. Her old wooden dresser is missing both the top and bottom drawers, but clothes are crammed inside anyway. There's a big green chair in the corner. Rips in the velvet are patched by silver duct tape.

And there are tons of live animals, too. A pair of lovebirds cooing in a white wire cage. An iguana baking under a lightbulb inside a huge glass fish tank. I saw a litter box in the foyer downstairs, but I haven't seen a cat yet.

It's like the total opposite of my room. It's alive.

I step carefully around everything, like I could somehow pollute it with my plainness. I find myself standing in front of a poster of Andy Warhol, who I remember from Ms. Kay's slide shows. It's a screen-printed photograph of him, all fuzzy and orange, wearing black Ray-Ban sunglasses. Underneath is his famous quote,
IN THE FUTURE, EVERYONE WILL BE WORLD-FAMOUS FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES
. Only Fiona's crossed the fifteen-minute part out and replaced it with
FIFTY YEARS TO LIFE!
in black marker. The exclamation point has its own shadow.

Fiona crouches in front of her mirror, and in two seconds she has pinned up her hair all funky and cute. “I love your hair like that,” I tell her.

I watch her eyes move from her reflection on to me. “Do you want to play beauty parlor?”

I bounce on my toes. I can't help it. “Really?”

“Here.” Fiona throws some stuff off a plastic mushroom stool. “Come sit.”

It's weird, actually watching myself transform. My reflection in the mirror, though partially obscured by a million random pieces of paper and stickers tucked into the edges of the black plastic frame, reminds me of the films they show in science class, where a flower grows out of the ground at warp speed.

Fiona parts a bobby pin using her free hand and her mouth. “Your hair is so healthy, I want to throw up all over you.” She secures a twisty section up on the crown of my head. “I'll be lucky if I don't go bald by graduation,” she says, scrunching her hair in her hand. It does sound dry. “I think I'm going to have to dye it all black in a few days. That's the best color to do. It seeps into the tiny holes and flakes in your hair strands and pumps them up and makes it strong again. It's like hair steroids.”

“I love the colored stripe!”

“Yeah, I know, but I get bored of things really quick, so it's like I'm always on to something new. I think my mind speed is double that of everyone else.” Fiona smiles. “Okay. You're done!”

I turn and check out the side of my head. The countless blond swirls make me look like a girl from another time. Fiona has also parted my hair on the side, pulling a big sweep across my forehead. It looks dramatic. “I wish I could do things like this to my hair,” I say.

“You're so funny, Emily. I'm just pinning it up. It's not like heart surgery.”

I stand up and check out the rest of me in the full-length mirror. My new hairstyle totally doesn't go with my outfit. I wanted to wear something cool for First Friday, but I also needed my outfit to work for Rick's party. I stole my dad's Villanova shirt and safety-pinned the sides of it on the train so it would fit tighter. I paired that with my white jean miniskirt, which would also work for Rick's party. But the hair is too fancy for the T-shirt. I have a purple silk cami Meg really likes me in, stuffed in my bag. I figured I'd change into that in the train station, but I guess I could wear it now. Only my hair is too original for the clothes that will get me by for the second part of my night. A piece of hair uncoils and falls in front of my right eye, like it knows this isn't going to work.

Fiona steps to the rescue, and twists it back into place. “You could borrow something of mine to wear, if you wanted,” she says. “In fact, you should probably dress a little more fancy. That way, no one says anything when you reach for the wine.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Speaking of free booze, I was thinking we should order dinner, otherwise we're bound to get sloppy drunk. Do you like Indian food?”

“I've never had Indian food.”

“Geez! It's like you're from the moon or something! I'll order you some stuff I know you'll love. And I guess I should text Robyn and Adrian about the dress code thing, too. I mean, I'm sure Robyn already knows, but Adrian is clueless. At least you grew up remotely near the city. He's almost a lost cause.” She disappears, then sticks her head back in the door a second later. “Ooh. The clothes on the floor of my closet are clean. I swear.”

I wait to move until I hear her feet pounding down the stairs. Then I pull open the door to Fiona's closet.

I don't know if it happens because there's almost too much to look at, patterns and shapes and colors and materials, but on the floor, at the very top of the mountain of clothes, is this bright blue dress. It's simple in shape — tight on top, with two thick straps, then it balloons to a short skirt with lots of white tulle layers underneath that puff it out.

I take off my clothes and quickly slide the dress on. It's a bit loose in the boobs, so I keep my bra on and try to line the straps up, but otherwise, it's a perfect fit. I do a twirl, right there in the middle of the room, and wonder what it would be like if I were really this person.

It feels good, even if it's just pretend for a night.

Fiona stops in the doorway. “Oh my God, Emily! You look so rad!”

“So do you,” I say. Fiona's changed, too, into a black tube dress with a ruffle across the bottom hem and skinny black heels. A huge amber pendant lies on her chest. She looks sexy, older.

Fiona curtseys. “I love this dress, but I always have to dry it on high to get it tight again. Cheapie clothes are like that. You can only wear them once. By the end of the night, it'll be all bagged out.”

“Well, I've never worn a dress like this.”

“Guess where I got it?” She laughs. “This Halloween costume shop on South Street was going out of business and everything was a million percent off. I think it was part of an Alice in Wonderland costume, but someone stole the shoes and the little white apron.”

“Oh no.” I peel down the straps, embarrassed.

“Don't worry. You can't tell!” she says. “Here!” She ducks down deep into the closet. She pulls out a black cotton cardigan that smells like incense and tells me to take off my flip-flops and wear her round-toe black patent leather mary janes instead. Her feet are bigger than mine, but I can walk okay, if I scrunch up my toes.

The last thing I do is unhinge my Tiffany's necklace, the one Meg gave to me. I try not to feel guilty about it, either. It just doesn't go with the dress.

Fiona throws a couple of shirts and things into a plastic bag for me, stuff that she says won't fit her or that she's tired of.

“Wow,” I say. “Are you sure you want to give all this away?”

“Think of these as a donation to your Cause of Cool,” she says. “I seriously don't have room for any more clothes in here, anyhow.”

A flash of white runs across the floor in front of me. I jump back.

“Snowflake!” Fiona chases her bunny and swoops it up into a hug. Snowflake's claws scrape her arms, leaving behind a fresh set of the little scratches and red marks. I feel silly for thinking they were something else, something dark.

Fiona and Snowflake take me on a tour of the rest of the house. In the mismatched living room, Fiona points out a collection of paintings.

“These are my mom's,” she says proudly.

I lean in for a closer look.

The paintings are not what I expected them to be. Classical-looking landscapes, like the pastorals we saw at the museum. They're beautiful.

“And this is me,” she says, pointing to a few strokes that suddenly take the shape of a young girl, out of focus in a grassy field. “At my grandma's house. She lived in Amish country. My mom actually hates these paintings. She does much more modern stuff now. But I think she keeps them up because she's still sad about my grandma dying.” The doorbell rings. “Food!”

Fiona looks through her wallet. I can see from where I'm standing that it's empty.

“Crap. I'm sorry, Emily, but do you have any cash?” She looks embarrassed. “My mom was supposed to be home by now. She's probably working late at her studio. She always loses track of time when she's painting.”

“Oh yeah! Sure!” I say, and fish for my wallet. I take out a twenty. And then, two more.

“I'll pay you back. I swear,” Fiona promises as she takes them from my hand. “Wait. This is too much.”

“No! Don't worry. You gave me all those clothes and everything. And you invited me out tonight.”

“Really?” Shyness looks odd on someone like Fiona. It doesn't fit.

But I'm happy to do something for her. “It's no problem at all.” She pays the man at the door and we take the food into her kitchen. “So, your mom is a full-time artist? That's so cool.”

“Yup.” Fiona rips open the bags and starts pulling out plastic containers. Lots of them. “She's been working on this new series of paintings that are totally freaking amazing. I've seen them and they blow me away! She kicks the ass of any of our professors. Well, maybe not my Performance Art teacher. She's a complete genius. But definitely Mr. Frank.” She takes off the lids and suddenly the whole room smells warm and spicy. “I ordered a ton of food because I want you to try all my favorites.” Fiona makes a bed of rice on my plate. Then she scoops out some red sauce on top, careful to not let the sauce seep out to where she spoons the salad. After a minute, my plate is expertly divided with six different tastes of food in the brightest colors. She hands it to me and says, “Emily, you've NEVER tasted anything like this before.”

I know it's true before it hits my lips.