The Girl Who Invented Romance (10 page)

My own thoughts were filled with Will. I had never thought so intensely about a boy at all, never mind a boy I didn’t like. What had he ever done that was appealing or friendly or kind or any of the things he himself had listed under love? At last I admitted the truth. I had a crush on Will.

Why? I thought despairingly. Why on the boy who calls me up to discuss another girl?

Angie did not ask Faith out.

Faith should have known. I think she did know. It was just unbearable to contemplate—being rejected. Both she and Parker were walking wounded. Parker bled internally and never talked, but Faith talked endlessly. I never told her about Will. There was nothing to tell. And yet my emotions were incredibly strong and totally private.

In sociology, Wendy was her usual bubbly self.

“How could she go out with Park for three months,” I whispered to Faith, “and it doesn’t show? There’s nothing left of it?”

“It’s as if they wrote that love in the sand at low tide,” said Faith, “and the waves wiped it away, leaving no record.”

Wendy continued to write her soap operas. They continued to be funny. Whatever happened to Octavia was not announced over the public-address system. School jokes about possible endings were told for days, however, and Wendy thrived on the attention. She wrote her dialogue exclusively during sociology now, passing the scripts over to Jeep for his approval. Jeep always told her that that day’s soap was the best ever.

At home, the game of romance now included history.

“For God’s sake, Violet!” shouted my father one night at dinner. “It’s nothing but a meal. Three hundred people having overcooked roast beef or underdone salmon and telling each other we don’t look any different. That’s all the reunion will be.”

“I understand, George. I understand perfectly.”

“Good. Ellen is in the past, that’s all. We’ll have this one dinner the following night with her husband what’s-his-name and that’s it.”

My mother stared into her water glass and whirled it until the ice cubes tinkled against each other.

“Ellen was always a very kind and understanding person,” said my father.

“Oh? Am I going to require extra kindness and understanding?”

“Violet! Ellen will be an excellent hostess. You’ll love her.”

“You mean you’ll love her.”

“I do not love Ellen.”

“Then why do you keep bringing her up?”

A week of this and we were all ready to shoot somebody. It was just that nobody could agree who deserved to be shot. Ellen for existing? Mom for overreacting? Dad for losing his temper and stomping off?

“See what I mean?” Parker said to me. “See how ridiculous this is? Mom is weak. Dad is dumb.”

“That’s not true,” I said, although it appeared to be.

“I don’t know what Mom thinks is going to happen,” muttered Park. “Does she think old Ellen is going to snatch Dad away from her? That Ellen will divorce what’s-his-name and Dad will divorce Mom?”

It terrified me. “I suppose that could happen.” If it did, I would definitely find that counselor. Forget my intimacy quotient. I would never survive my parents’ divorce.

“It could not happen,” said Parker sharply.

“You had faith in Wendy and look what happened when the competition showed up.”

Parker did not argue. He just faded. The lines in his face deepened until he could have been Dad’s age.

“What did happen, anyway?” I asked. I hated not knowing. Not only did it mean I couldn’t answer when the entire
school asked me about Park and Wendy, it meant I couldn’t help Park either.

My brother’s answer was the last I could ever have expected.

“I yelled at her for mocking you,” he told me.

“But—but you were so worried about
her
when we sat in the kitchen with Mom. You didn’t say one word about her using me.”

“I didn’t know then. She told me later when we went out. She said she found your quiz in the magazine and saw your score written in the margin and decided to use it.”

“You defended me?” I said slowly. I thought, His love life ended because he was his usual nice self. And about his dumb little sister who’s always a pain when he has a chance to use the car.

“She picked a fight. It was like she wanted a fight so she could storm off and go back to Jeep. I felt like we were following one of her scripts. She was laughing at you. She said you were a—” Parker stopped, didn’t say whatever word Wendy had used and went on. “I got furious and yelled at her, which I have never done, and she took out her cell phone and right there in front of me called Jeep to come and rescue her.”

I could not even picture this. How absolutely horrible for Park. He had sat there in his own car while Wendy changed drivers. Had Jeep demanded to know why Wendy needed rescue? Had Jeep said, What, you’re hurting her? You some monster or something?

We were sitting on my bed. Park was slumped against the headboard.

“Oh, Park.” I felt sick for him. “You’ll find somebody else, though,” I said cheerily. “Don’t worry too much.”

What a jerk I sounded like.

I loved my brother for standing up for me, and yet if this was the result, he should have laughed with Wendy. But he was nice. He wouldn’t laugh at anybody, even me.

“I don’t want somebody else.” The despair in his voice matched the lines on his face.

It’s better to have played the game and lost, I thought, than to be like me, not playing at all. Nobody’s voice had ever sunk in despair because of me and I had never felt despair over anybody either. At least Park could feel pain.

I tried to explain that.

“Kelly,” said my brother, “that’s like telling a cancer victim that now that he’s dying, he can appreciate life. It’s stupid. I don’t want to be a better, stronger person because of this. I want to be plain old me with Wendy at my side.”

When Parker went into his room, I sat on my bed to stare at my romance board. Currently it featured a great heart with three paths: pink, pale pink and white. You went around the heart three times and ended up in the center, resting on Cupid’s arrow. Little cherubs danced around and wedding bouquets fell into your final square. I’d spent a lot of money on rubber stamps with exactly the right pictures and I was artistically delighted with the result.

The paths were divided into squares. Each was a Good Thing. Nice dates, sunny weather, sleek cars, lovely gifts, strong hugs, passionate kisses. I’d had such fun making up the dates. I’d never written so many exclamation points in my life.

A picnic by the sea! Sunburned but happy!

A bicycle built for two! Windblown and in love!

You two go hang gliding! In heaven with a heavenly boy!

But in our house, my brother was devastated, my mother terrified, my father furious, and I was simply lonely.

How pitiful the game was. In real life, nobody deals you a perfect anything, let alone rows of delightful boyfriends. And to spend every day, every square, doing a Good Thing with this splendid person?

I kicked the board game under my bed to get it out of our lives.

“N
o,” said Megan. “Absolutely not, Mrs. Williams. Since you’re asking, I will tell you. That outfit is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.”

My mother looked longingly into my full-length mirror.

“You have become invisible,” Megan told her. “You are wearing a skin-toned dress. Flesh-colored makeup. Clear nail polish. You can’t seriously want to wear this to the reunion.”

“Of course I can. And there’s nothing wrong with this outfit or being invisible,” said my mother.

“Then you’re a success,” Megan told her. “People won’t be able to shake hands with you because they won’t be able to find your hand against that dress.”

My mother was no match for anyone in those clothes. It was odd how I too had come to think of Ellen as competition to be fought down. I wanted my mother to win easily. We ought to have one winner in the family at least.

“Go put on that purple dress,” said Megan firmly. “Really. No kidding, it’s perfect. The saleswoman who talked you into buying it had excellent taste and was right. Put it on and then we’ll accessorize you.” Megan turned to me. “God knows, after all these years of gifts from your father, she must have more accessories than the department store anyway.”

“But not many that go with purple,” said my mother.

“Yes, you do,” I told her. “You have at least a billion violet things.”

“Violet is not purple. Violet is sweet dark lavender. That dress I paid a small fortune for is as purple as strobe lights.” Mother heaved a huge deep sigh and slunk back to her room to try it on.

“I had no idea high school reunions were so scary,” Megan said to me. “Especially when it isn’t even her reunion.”

I did not explain Fear of Ellen and how it ranked in our family. I did not want that problem to become Fox Meadow property. “Mom thinks she’ll be on display and she’s nervous. Now go back to telling me about Will. You actually turned him down?”

Megan gloated. “Yes. I loved turning him down. I felt so good afterward.”

I lay back on my bed. In the next room I could hear
Mother rustling, slithering out of one dress into the next. I could feel the many seams of the patchwork denim spread making lines on my skin. I could feel myself inside my clothes. But I could not feel what Megan was feeling.

“Power,” explained Megan. “Jimmy had such power over me. He could ruin my schedule, reduce me to tears, leave me feeling foolish and ugly and unloved.”

“But that was Jimmy. This is Will.”

“You don’t understand,” said Megan. Which was certainly true. “Jimmy likes that drippy little bowling freak better than he likes me. Did you take a look at her? A loser. It’s worse losing out to a loser than to a winner.” Megan made a series of terrible faces and admired each expression in my mirror.

Perhaps Ellen felt that way. Perhaps now she thought she’d been wrong to leave my father. Did she wonder how Dad could choose Mother after beautiful brilliant Ellen? Perhaps Ellen felt that Dad had married a loser.

“I’ve never been dumped before,” confided Megan, “and I plan never to be dumped again. I’ll always be the dumper, not the dump-ee.”

“You mean,” I said slowly, “that you said no to Will because it made you feel better about Jimmy?”

Megan nodded. “Ooooh, great nail polish,” she said, landing on the gift boxes Faith was always raiding. “I saw this advertised and I meant to get it for myself. May I try it, Kelly? Thanks.” She unscrewed the top and began stroking color over her nails.

Poor Will, I thought. He had no importance to Megan. She didn’t even turn him down because of him. He wasn’t even worth turning down. She turned him down because of Jimmy, and Will will never know that. He’ll wonder if it was his breath or his personality, his bony face or his smelly feet. (Actually I don’t know if his feet smell. I never had the opportunity, if that’s what you’d call it, to find out; it was just an example.)

My mother came back into the room wearing another old dress, and not her new one, and Megan glanced over and said, “No! Mrs. Williams. That color is vomit green and the style is for old women when they’re weeding in their gardens. You should not even have it in your house.

“Anyway, Mrs. Williams, don’t be mad at me for saying this, but it makes you look fat,” added Megan, dealing the ultimate slam on the green dress. “Other people at the reunion will be thin.”

My mother cringed.

Megan rammed her point home. “They’ll lord it over you if you look fat.”

“I’m dieting,” said my mother desperately. “Really. I’m down two pounds.”

If there is a God, I thought, he could make Ellen gain weight between now and the reunion. Develop a craving for cream-filled doughnuts so she has to show up in size forty-four polyester pants.

But Ellen was the kind who would never get fat. I knew
from her yearbook picture. She would always manage to be superior to the rest of us. The way Megan was superior to me.

Megan was helping with Mother’s clothes, but she wasn’t doing it to be helpful. She was showing my mother that she, at sixteen, knew more about style than Mother ever would. She was enjoying every minute of being the expert with the beginner.

Do I even like Megan? I thought. She’s my lifelong friend and now I’m not sure I like her. I don’t like how she treated Will and I don’t like how she’s treating Mom.

I thought about how Daddy was treating Mother. He had stopped bringing presents and cards. I thought he was annoyed over the whole Ellen behavior but Mom thought it was proof that his dreams were about Ellen.

Over Ellen, who lived two thousand miles away, they were going to break down.

What terrible timing it all was.

Perhaps what my board game needed was an element of timing. Good timing and bad. Things that came together by accident as well as by planning. Things that would fall apart when nobody wanted them to and things that would never have an explanation.

Mother came in wearing the purple dress.

“Yes!” shouted Megan, clapping. “It’s you. Streamlined, but feminine. Flared romantic hemline and just a speck sexy at the neck. I love how that fabric falls. And it’s your color. Utterly. Yes. Excellent!”