In Her Skin(34)

She really believes I am a dork. “You want to freak them out.”

“I do. And thank you in advance for that,” you say, and, out of nowhere, “I’m not afraid of dying.”

This surprises me less than the fact that we are hanging out at a cemetery. “Huh.”

“It’s different for you, I suppose,” you say.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it,” I say.

“Right you are. Henry and Clarissa’s mandate: gotta practice not-remembering.” You smile at the sky, and this makes me smile. A normal sixteen-year-old would be tiptoeing around my special status, but you’re so funny about it, and then so sarcastic about your parents’ warped plan, which smacks of self-preservation (which, as long as it works for me, whatev).

If only I didn’t have to act like mousy Vivienne, you and I would take on the world.

“What are you thinking about?” you ask, but you don’t really want to know, because it’s that drawer with its false bottom.

I go with innocent and stupid. “How life is short and we should make the most of it.”

“Sounds like you got the message. Do you know what I’m skipping right now?”

“I knew you had to be skipping something to have dragged me here. Cello?”

“Wrong.”

“Fencing?”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Math Team?”

“Nothing. The answer’s nothing. Because I quit French Club, which is what this hour is—was—dedicated to. My parents don’t know, and I’m not telling them. In fact, I’m going to keep quitting things until they find out. And when that happens, it’s going to be epic.”

Oh, Temple. You rebel by quitting “extracurriculars” and, well, yes: stealing poems and Tindering, and taking the occasional party drug. I rebelled by telling Momma’s boyfriends I had bugs “down there” so they would leave me alone. Still, we are cut from one cloth, and even if you think I’m bland Vivi, you also know we are the same, somewhere deep and sweet.

You pat the ground next to me. “Sit.”

I obey.

“Do you remember how we used to tell people we were triplets, but we ate our sister in the womb?” you ask.

I flutter-blink before answering. “Yeah, of course. It’s so funny you remember that.”

“We were impossible. We refused to be apart, remember? We had to wear the same color to school, and chalk our hair, and bring the same exact snacks in our lunch boxes. For the whole month. My mother was a bitch about it, but your mother was sooo patient. I’m not making you sad talking about your mom, am I?”

“No,” I say, burying my head in my knees.

“I can tell you have a hole inside, where your mother was. And I’m sorry for that. I’m really, really sorry.”

You don’t even know, Temple Lovecraft.

But you do know, because you rise and hug me. “I know I’m awkward,” you say into my hair. “I say awkward, awful things. It’s just—”

You pull away. Don’t pull away, not yet. Blood pumping to the farther parts. Heat.

“I always wished I had your mom instead of mine. She laughed at everything we did; she didn’t freak about anything.”

I press my lips together in a pained smile. This would pain Vivi, and it pains me.

“Like that time after school when she let us butter the cat.”

Whose cat? My cat? The Lovecrafts’ cat? Did they have a cat? Don’t panic.

You shake your head slowly. “So wrong and so awesome. It was almost better than the time she let us use your bike air pump to blow up tomatoes. It was spectacular! Little seeds in our hair and on our clothes. We called it our ‘science homework.’ I still have the urge to explode a tomato sometimes.”

I force a grunt that could mean anything.

“Oh my God. Remember spying on the couple who lived two doors down? They always had their shades open and you could see right in from my window seat on the second floor? They were nudists, basically!”

“Basically.”

“We were terrors. Remember how mad your dad got when we made signs saying ‘Sorry for the damage to your car’ and left them on cars parked on Comm Ave.?”

Remember? Remember? I do not remember, and I cannot pretend to remember, because I never did anything like this. I’ve been a working girl my whole life. My after-school activities consisted of stalking cars at stoplights wearing an orange vest and begging for change in my pail marked FOR THE CHILDREN. My version of spying involved hanging around ATMs watching people key in their pins and memorizing them for later when I stole the cards. I did my actual science homework lying across hotel room bedspreads waiting for online “dates” to arrive. I did not have leisure time to do Stupid Kid Stuff. Period. And right about now I’m feeling pretty bad about it.

“We were crazy,” I say. It sounds lame. I am lame. Maybe I’m reminding you how lame Vivi actually was. This afternoon is going wrong in so many directions I’ve lost track, and man, it’s getting dark in this cemetery. I suddenly stand, because this walk down memory lane and these opportunities for getting caught are bugging me out. “I’m super cold.”

You stand too, brushing off your back and your jeans. A leaf is caught in your hair, and I want so badly to pluck it out, but it seems intimate and wrong, because so far, you have done the touching.