Page 67 of Everything You Want Me to Be
What changed was that her hand moved under the covers, snaking over my chest.
“Mary.” Everything I couldn’t say was wrapped up in the two syllables of her name. No, Mary. It’s too late, Mary. When you shut me out I didn’t wait for you, Mary.
Her lips touched my neck and I closed my eyes. Inhaled. Her hand slipped down my stomach and I caught it, holding her off.
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“Peter,” she murmured. “Let me try.”
I had no right. Self-loathing coursed through my veins as her hand wriggled free and found a rhythm. And then I was trying, too, rolling her to her back and trying to return her unexpected gesture, trying to act like a husband should, trying to make up for the fact that, even now, Hattie beckoned from the shadows of my mind.
HATTIE/ March 2008
SPRING BREAKin Minnesota sucked. There was always still snow on the ground and only the choir people got to go anywhere, because they competed in a tournament in Nashville. I hated country music and Nashville was probably the last place I’d visit, but it was better than Pine Valley. Portia was an alto and she’d brought up the trip constantly ever since Peter posted the cast list for the spring play.
I’d gotten the female lead of Lady Macbeth. Portia was cast as my understudy.
And go figure, that’s also when she started getting really weird about this curse stuff. At first when Peter posted the casting call, Portia had mentioned the curse ofMacbeth, but it was all in her gossipy, I-know-more-than-you voice. After she found out she wasn’t in the play, all of a sudden the curse was real. She spent every rehearsal telling us about famousMacbethaccidents, and by the time we held our last session before spring break, everyone was doing her insane cleansing ritual.
The deal was this: if anyone said “Macbeth” inside the gymnasium when we weren’t directly rehearsing the lines, they “invoked the curse.” To pacify the curse gods, they had to immediately run out the door, race around the outside of the gym, spit over their left shoulder, and recite, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us.” Then someone else had to officially admit the person back into the gym before we could continue rehearsing.
The first time Peter said “Macbeth,” Portia tried to get him to perform her routine and he totally snapped at her. He threatened to ban her from the production if she even so much as mentioned it again. After that she operated in whispers until everyone said “the Scottish play” or “Mr. and Mrs. McBee.” Portia even started running out on Peter’s behalf when he said the word, and all the underclassmen followed her, so every time Peter called Macbeth up to the stage, half the cast dropped their scripts and ran like lemmings into the hallway. It was hilarious. Sometimes while we waited for them to do their penance I crossed myself “in the name of the father Macbeth, the son Macbeth, and the holy Macbeth spirit. Amen.” Peter couldn’t help laughing whenever I did it.
After the last rehearsal before break I went over to Portia’s house to hang out for a while. Instead of watching movies like we normally did, she just tried on a bunch of outfits for her Nashville trip and pretended to want my opinion.
“How about this one?” She spun around in a short-sleeve twinset and knee-length skirt that looked exactly like my back-to-school outfit.
“That seems a little too prep school. Shouldn’t you go for more of a southern belle?”
“It’s not a costume, Hatts. I just want to look like me on vacation. Like a me without parents.”
She slid on a pair of sunglasses. Show-off. I lay down on her bed and hung my head over the edge, looking at her upside down. “Trèsparentless.”
“What are you going to do all week?”
“Work. Run lines.” I threw a jab of my own. At first I thought it was a little mean of Peter not to give Portia any part, but the more she rubbed in her “fabulous” trip, the less mean it seemed. And I really was planning on working on it. Opening night was only three weeks away and I didn’t have all my longer speeches down yet.
“You can call me on Thursday if you need help. We have a free day and I’ll probably be all over the Opry Mills, but I can spare an hour or so to rehearse.”
“We’ll see. I might get Tommy to help me.”
Portia snorted and I couldn’t help smiling, too. Tommy Kinakis reading Shakespeare sounded as wrong as Carrie Bradshaw plowing fields. He’d been bugging me about seeing each other during break, though, and Portia knew why.
“Are you finally going to do it with Tommy?”
I stared at a corner of the ceiling where a small spider was busy making a web. It had been over two months since Peter and I stayed in Minneapolis, and to say wedid itwas just so middle school. It felt like an ocean had opened up between me and Portia and I would never be on her side of it again. It made me embarrassed for her, and lonely for me.
I hadn’t seen Peter alone since the night we parked at the scenic overlook in February. It was like I was fasting for weeks and weeks before getting these sudden feasts, where I had to eat as much as possible to survive the next fast. Before we drove away that night, he told me the same thing he had before we’d left Minneapolis, that we didn’t have a relationship.I can’t be with you,he said,not the way you want.And I ignored him again. Graduation was only a few months away and then our biggest obstacle was gone. Peter didn’t know that I had plans; I could see how the whole play would unfold.
In the meantime I still had to wear this other life. Part of me had wanted to break up with Tommy since the first night Peter kissed me, but the show had to go on. Everyone thought of us as a couple, a single unit. Every day someone asked if Tommy and I wanted to do this or that and I always answered, “I don’t know what Tommy wants to do. I’ll ask him.” Then during lunch IaskedTommy about our plans until he said what I wanted him to say. I always tried to spend our dates with other couples, especially since he’d started trying things.
“I told him waist up only.”
Portia tucked her jewelry bag into the suitcase next to me on the bed. “You said he wanted to do more.”
“It’s not my problem if he doesn’t listen.”
“It might be your problem.” She put on a jacket and quickly shrugged it off again. “What am I doing? I won’t need that in Tennessee. It’s going to be eighty degrees.”
