Come out come out, p.14
Come Out, Come Out, page 14
Every eye in the theater was on her. Waiting and watching. Every person here had heard Ms. Murphy tell her that she wasn’t a girl anymore.
But none of them knew how true those words felt. And she didn’t want them to know. Not yet. Not when this feeling was so new.
“No,” Fern said. “I’m good.”
“Great, then…action!”
This time, Fern told her body to relax, to let her legs flare wide and her torso bow casually. The change was easy. Natural. The shedding of an outfit that she’d been wearing for too long and didn’t fit right anymore. It was like bringing the way she always felt inside into alignment with the outside. She settled into her body, into the idea of Danny Zuko with surprising ease. Just like that, Sandy was gone, but so was the Fern that had reigned for the last five years. The one who had a smile for everyone except Kaitlyn.
And then it was her line.
“Would you like to come a little closer?” she asked, mouth twisting in a half smile that was equal parts smarmy and innocent.
There was a flash of excitement in Kaitlyn’s eyes. Recognition and joy. Then she fluttered a hand between them. “I’m good.”
The next line flowed, the two of them slipping seamlessly into their new roles, the air between them electric. The stiffness that had existed before was gone, replaced by a sinuous energy that snaked between and around them, drawing them together. This was how the scene was supposed to feel. Alive with anticipation.
Fern slid the bright blue Ring Pop onto Kaitlyn’s finger and said, “I’ve wanted to give this to you for a long time.” She cupped one hand behind Kaitlyn’s head, leaning in, breath hitching in her throat as her eyes landed on Kaitlyn’s mouth. Her lips gently coral and full, glittering in the stage light. Drawing her closer and closer until their lips touched.
For a perfect second of stillness Fern forgot that they were onstage. Forgot that they were surrounded by people and, maybe more importantly, their drama teacher. Forgot that she was supposed to pantomime wanting so much more while physically restraining herself.
Because she did want more. And she wasn’t restraining herself.
And neither was Kaitlyn.
Fern tangled her fingers in Kaitlyn’s curls, and Kaitlyn leaned forward, her own hands sliding around Fern’s neck, her thumbs brushing Fern’s jaw.
“I said cut!” Ms. Murphy’s voice was a shout, bright with amusement.
Fern jerked away from Kaitlyn. Heart pounding. Cheeks hot. Lips tingling.
Kaitlyn did the same, covering her mouth with one hand.
“That!” Ms. Murphy cried. “That’s where we need to be. You nailed it! We’re going to stop there for the day, but I want you to hold on to this feeling, and we’ll pick it up again tomorrow. If you’ve forgotten your next assignment, check in with Cam before you leave. Otherwise, a big round of applause for your work today, everyone! Remember, we are on a compressed rehearsal timeline, and there’s only a week and a half left till we open.”
All around, the rest of the cast and crew broke into applause, dragging their hands in the customary circle before leaving the stage in search of wherever they dropped their bags.
Fern climbed to her feet, unsure of basically everything. Had anyone else noticed that that kiss was one hundred percent off script? That she hadn’t been acting, maybe for the first time in her life?
Fern felt like she was expanding. Like rightness was a feeling that could fill her lungs and veins and make her as light as air.
Ms. Murphy climbed up onstage and approached Fern, stopping so she stood close enough to lower her voice. “Fern, that was excellent, but I need you to bring that same energy and focus to Sandy tomorrow or we’re going to have to find another approach. I know you have it in you, but if you can’t find it, then we may need to talk about finding a new Sandy.”
Shame crashed through Fern, her body flashing from hot to cold in a split second. A choking frustration hard on its heels.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said.
“I hope not,” Ms. Murphy answered with a blend of concern and sympathy. “Just remember, if the role is causing you harm, it’s okay to put it down.”
“It’s not!” Fern struggled to keep from shouting. “I promise. I can do it. I’ll be back on my game on Monday.”
“Okay,” Ms. Murphy gave Fern’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “See you Monday.”
It took Fern a second to realize that Kaitlyn was still onstage with her. Seated on Sandy’s side of the bench, watching her with curious intensity.
Fern flushed again, unsure what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She just turned on her heel and fled.
Chapter
Eighteen
Jaq
Saturday morning, Jaq and her mother drove to Port Townsend and took the ferry across the Sound to Seattle. The day was overcast and misty, which fit Jaq’s mood just fine, and they spent the trip listening to the radio instead of speaking, which was a relief. Two weeks had passed since John’s pre-proposal, and her mom still hadn’t let it go. She was fixated on the ring.
She commented on how it complemented Jaq’s slender fingers. Instructed her on how to care for it properly. Told her again and again what a fine young man John was turning out to be. How lucky Jaq was to be with him.
She never once asked Jaq how she felt about any of it. As if Jaq’s feelings were so inconsequential they might as well not be a part of the equation at all.
It reminded her of Mallory before seventh-grade prom, and she did not want to think about Mallory anymore. Except she’d spent the past two weeks listening to her mom paint a picture of a future that left her cold, trying to shove her heart into a box that was the wrong shape, and she was exhausted. She wished she could tap into a fraction of Mal’s eloquent anger right now.
By the time they reached Pacific Place, the mall was in full swing. Crowds surged up and down the five floors, each level built like the cones in a beehive. The air smelled like fried food and overly sweet cookies, and the halls echoed with a cacophonous blend of chatter and Top 40 music.
Jaq usually loved these trips. She and her mom would spend a few hours shopping, then stop at the Clinique counter for a new lip gloss or sugar scrub, then they’d treat themselves to sushi and a fancy tea before heading home. But the whole way there, all Jaq’s mom could talk about was John.
“I assume John is waiting to pick his tux until you’ve gotten your dress for prom, yes?” Jaq’s mom asked, as she held out the skirt of a sage-green gown, then dropped it again.
“Yeah,” Jaq answered. They always coordinated for dances, and he’d already told her to pick her favorite dress and he’d match.
“Is his favorite color still blue?”
“Yep,” Jaq confirmed. Actually, he liked a very specific kind of blue, the darker shades like navy and cobalt and indigo. He liked it because last summer he’d read a book called Moon Dark Smile, and blue was an important part of it. They’d spent an entire afternoon driving through the summer-green foothills, discussing nothing but the color and the meaning of words and how the sky was blue but also every shade of blue. Blue was so much more than his favorite color. It was his favorite idea, and that was the sort of thing that made him so incredible.
But her mom didn’t want to know all that.
“It’s a shame. He looks so striking in blue, but it really isn’t your best color,” her mother murmured. She held a blue dress up to Jaq, a delicate frown pinching her brow. “I think you should try this one anyway.”
“You just said blue isn’t my color,” Jaq said, taking the dress out of habit.
“It isn’t, but something in this shade will flatter John’s coloring perfectly.”
Her mother turned away again, studying a second blue dress. One she knew wouldn’t suit her daughter but was considering anyway because blue looked good on her boyfriend.
“We could try pink,” Jaq suggested.
“Why would we do that? Pink is an awful color for boys,” her mother said, without even looking at her.
“Because it’s my favorite color,” Jaq answered, daring her mother to take the request seriously.
Her mother laughed, waving a hand dismissively in the air. “That hasn’t been true for a long time.”
Jaq didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t know which part was more offensive to her: the fact that her mother seemed to be shopping more for John than she was for her own daughter, or the fact that her mom didn’t know that pink—every shade from the faintest blush of a seashell to the brightest, most violent Barbie pink—was still her favorite color.
Before she could decide, her mother had moved off, carried away on a current of chiffon and satin.
Jaq turned her attention to a rack of dresses with long sweeping trains and skirts that fanned out like mermaids’ tails, with sweetheart necklines and elegant Queen Anne collars. She paused on one in a luscious salmon pink, the bodice off-shoulder and studded with little pink pearls, the high-low skirt layered with tulle. She imagined how it would open around her legs like the petals of a flower and wanted nothing more than to try it on and spin. To feel the skirt flying up around her thighs and Devyn’s hands catching her around the waist.
Jaq stopped herself and pushed the vision away. She hadn’t meant to think of Devyn. But now that she had, the images were stuck in her mind. Stubborn and tantalizing.
Devyn dressed in a sleek suit, a bodice hugging her curves beneath a loose jacket, her mahogany hair styled in big curls around her pale cheeks. Devyn tipping that lopsided smile at her and holding out one hand in invitation. Devyn drawing her close to dance, her breath ghosting against the exposed skin of Jaq’s jaw.
For two weeks, she’d been passing Devyn in the halls at school. They never spoke. But whenever Devyn was near, Jaq’s gaze drifted toward her, as though pulled inside a gravitational orbit. When their eyes met, Jaq’s entire body responded. In a way that left her tense and breathless and dreaming about Devyn’s hands and where they might touch her next.
It was different from how she’d ever felt about John’s touch. She hadn’t known it before, but she couldn’t help but make the comparison now. Things had always been more comfortable with John. Their pace considerate and slow. She’d always assumed that was because they were being careful, but now…Now she thought that her body had remembered more than her mind. Her memories had been taken, but there was something inside her that sparked for Devyn in a way she had never sparked for John.
In a way she had only ever sparked for Mallory.
In a way she had only ever desired other girls.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to replace Devyn with John. Imagine him touching her instead. The way things should be. The way things were.
If only she could talk to him about all of this.
“Don’t tell me you like that.”
Jaq jumped and turned to find her mother standing perilously close, long nose wrinkled in distaste.
“I do.” Jaq sifted through and found one in her size, taking it down and holding it against her body. Layers of tulle puffed in all directions.
“Mm, it’s not you,” her mother said, squinting as though even looking at it was causing her pain. Once more making decisions and determinations about Jaq without bothering to take Jaq into consideration. “Too revealing.”
“You haven’t even seen it on me. How can you know it’s not me?”
“I’m your mother. Trust me, I know. I know who you are and where you’re going and with whom.” She tapped Jaq’s ring and smiled.
Suddenly, it was all too much. The ring. The dress. The future unfurling before her, every choice made by committee and never by herself alone. The value of each choice tethered to how it related to John and John’s choices.
It wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that her mother treated her like an accessory, an object in someone else’s life.
“Mom, what would you do if John and I broke up?”
Some of her mother’s pleasant demeanor fell away, her attention crystalizing around the comment. “Why would you break up?”
“I don’t know.” Jaq tried to keep her tone conversational, exploratory. “Maybe because we’re still in high school, and who knows what will happen next year. Or tomorrow, for that matter.”
“You know, a lot of people will tell you that young love is fickle, but I don’t believe that. I think God brought the two of you together for a reason, the same way He brought your father and I together. Love doesn’t have to feel perfect to be perfect, and I can’t imagine a better person for you.” Her mother graced her with a smile that felt equal parts adoring and menacing. “Can you?”
Another image of Devyn flashed through her mind. Wind making rivers of her hair, dragging a laugh from her lips.
Jaq blinked it away and swallowed hard. Instead of answering, she returned the dress to the rack.
“Oh, here we are!” her mother declared. “Just look at this. This is you.”
Her mother held up a powder-blue dress with a full skirt and a long-sleeved bodice in an even paler blue, the whole thing glittering with iridescent sequins.
“This looks like something a Disney princess would wear.”
“Doesn’t it?!” her mom trilled, pushing the dress into Jaq’s hands. “Try it on.”
“I don’t like it.” Jaq stared at her mom, willing her to hear her words and believe them.
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen it on you yet. Trust me. This is going to be the one. And just imagine how incredible John will look in a dark blue suit. It will make his eyes look like emeralds.”
Jaq waited for her mother to imagine how the colors would work with Jaq’s complexion. Whether it would make her hair shine or her skin radiant. Whether it would accentuate some part of her, flatter some piece of her. Waited to hear what space Jaq occupied in her mother’s imagination.
And she thought again of Mallory. How she’d found her way into rebellion so young. How she had struggled to stand up to her parents, but did it anyway because at the end of the day the most important thing was being true to herself. She had been so brave.
“Come on,” her mother said, oblivious. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Numb, Jaq followed her mom to the dressing rooms, where an attendant wrote her name on a little chalkboard, then hung it on a hook by door number three. Luckily, her mom didn’t ask to go inside with her, so Jaq had a minute to herself, which she used to cover her face with the wretched blue skirt and scream silently.
“Take your time,” her mom called over the gap between the door and the ceiling. “And just remember how dashing John will look standing beside you. The dress is only one piece of the ensemble.”
Jaq wondered if other parents used words like dashing to talk about their daughter’s boyfriends, but she didn’t say anything.
The dress hung from a hook high on the wall, the hanger designed to hold the shoulders out and prevent the whole thing from drooping. Still, it looked less like a prom dress and more like something a cartoon-obsessed six-year-old would wear on Halloween. Or as pajamas.
Slowly, she slipped out of her clothes and unzipped the dress. She let the skirt pool on the floor, then stepped inside and pulled the whole thing up. She had to hand it to her mom, the fit was exquisite. The sleeves and bodice cinched against her body as she dragged the zipper up, and the skirt flared out from the perfect point of her hips. For a second, the dress felt good. But when she turned to face the mirror, she was surprised it didn’t crack.
Against the olive undertones of her skin, the combination of powdery-blue fabric and iridescent pastel sequins made her look gray. Half-dead. The wide scoop of the bodice accentuated her already broad shoulders, and the bodice somehow made her torso look stubby and truncated. The blue lace at the collar feathering against her skin like mold.
It was truly awful.
She felt the panic swirling in her chest, spurring her heart to beat faster and faster, and she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. When she opened them again, her reflection in the mirror had changed.
The princess dress was gone, and in its place was a wedding dress.
White lace over white satin, every layer sculpted to her body, the skirt reaching gracefully for the floor. Behind her, the dressing room had been replaced by the inside of her church. Pews garlanded in green and yellow flowers. Dozens of happy, approving faces looking up at her. The aisle strewn with rose petals like a spray of blood.
And next to her, grinning that golden grin, his green eyes locked on hers, was John.
Come back.
The voice was a torrent of cold water in her mind. Bracing and violent.
“No,” Jaq whispered, hand flying to her belly, grasping at a line of satin buttons. “No, no, no.”
She reached for the collar of the dress and tugged, but it didn’t budge. She tried again, harder this time, and still the dress stayed exactly where it was. Panic knifed from her lungs to the back of her throat, making it harder to breathe as she tried again.
But when she tried to slide her fingers between her skin and the fabric, they wouldn’t go. The dress was too tight. Tighter than it had been a second ago. The fabric was glued to her body, constricting with such force her skin was turning red where the seams dug in.
Jaq gasped, bending at the waist, and reached behind her for the string hanging from the zipper. Catching it, she tugged. Pulled. Ripped with all her strength.
The dress squeezed again, the fabric cinching in around her hips and stomach, forcing the air from her lungs so it could cinch even more.
