“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” Corvis asked Susan, smirking.
“No,” Susan said uncertainly. She was wearing Laura Ashley floral pajamas: a matching tank top and shorts, with lace on the edges and at the neckline.
“Do you believe in God?” Corvis asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Of course I do,” Susan said in a small voice.
“Well, he’s basically just a ghost,” said Corvis. “In churches, they even call him one.”
Heather, who was Catholic, said, “You’re so weird, Corvis.”
Heather’s mind was made up about Corvis the second she saw the note. Heather had always competed with Corvis—I think because Corvis never seemed insecure—and this was her chance to win.
Heather looked at me.
“Remind me,” she said, “why did you start inviting her to sleepovers?”
To see if her pajamas were like my pajamas.
“Shut up, Heather,” I said. Heather wore a nightgown with bunnies on it. Also, the collar was lace.
“You’re probably going to grow up to be Wiccan,” she said to Corvis. “Aren’t you?”
Corvis looked surprised. She was the last member to join our group, but she’d been accepted so long ago that she wasn’t used to Heather treating her this way.
“I’m Catholic,” Susan said.
“It’s stupid to try and guess what’s going to happen,” said Corvis, who wasn’t anything.
I wasn’t Catholic either. My problems were accumulating. Corvis and I had the same kind of pajamas, and we were both heathens. I had to go through with the plan.
“Think about Kurt Cobain’s daughter,” I said, to change the subject. “Like, he’s her dad.”
“I know,” Susan said. “And her middle name is Bean.” She shuddered.
“He’s not her dad anymore,” Heather said.
“Of course he is,” said Corvis. “When someone dies, it doesn’t mean they’re not still your dad.” She looked at me. “Or if they leave.”
“Taylor doesn’t have a dad,” Heather said.
“Yes,” said Corvis, “she does.”
“Well then,” said Heather, “where is he?”
I stiffened. I didn’t like when other people talked about my missing father. “I don’t know,” I said.
Heather crossed her arms over her chest.
“We could try to find him,” said Heather, gesturing to the Ouija board.
“No,” I said.
“That’s what I thought,” Heather said, looking at me with a satisfied expression on her face.
We’d somehow gotten away from our plan.
“I know what to ask it,” I said. “Let’s ask it who Corvis loves.”
Heather’s eyes lit up again.
Susan looked nervously from Corvis to me, to Heather, and back to me.
“You’re supposed to ask the spirits questions you can’t answer in real life,” Corvis said. “If you wanted to know who I love, you could just ask me.”
“Fine,” said Heather. “Who do you love, Corvis?”
“No one,” said Corvis.
“Liar,” said Heather.
I pulled the note from my pocket, unfolded it, and held it up. Corvis’s eyes widened.
“You weren’t supposed to show that to anyone,” she said to me.
Game time. Adrenaline kept me going.
“It’s Taylor,” Heather said. “Isn’t it? She’s who you love.”
This shocked me. I hadn’t considered this as part of Corvis’s gayness, and I found it sort of strange that Heather had jumped to that conclusion.
Corvis said nothing. She looked about seven times smaller.
“Prove it,” said Heather. “Prove you don’t want to kiss Taylor.”
Susan hugged her legs to her chest.
“Do it,” I said. “Kiss me. Then we can tell if it’s real or fake.”
“No way,” said Corvis.
I leaned back, my pajama top slipping off my shoulder.
“I know you want to,” I said, struggling to maintain a confident tone for Heather. “Prove me wrong.”
Corvis rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said.
She crawled toward me on all fours and leaned in. This was one of the slowest seconds of my life—I had enough time to smell the scent of pine on her, a nice smell, like she used her father’s deodorant or something. I had enough time to register that her lips were chapped, that she’d just brushed her teeth, that her hair was coarse and prickly. I remember everything about that moment—I would remember it even without the photograph that circled the school the following Monday, making the event visible and permanent.
Heather pulled out Susan’s Polaroid and snapped the photograph. It showed Corvis leaning toward me, and me leaning back—evidence that I didn’t initiate.
Corvis instantly pulled away when she heard the click of the camera.
Though I recognized our sameness in the kiss, I also knew that Corvis didn’t want to kiss me. It was true that she wanted girls, but I was not one of them.
If everyone had looked closely at the photograph, they would have seen that Corvis didn’t mean it, but no one looked closely. No one looked closely when Heather and I made copies of both the photograph and Corvis’s note and tossed them everywhere around school.
“What are you doing?” Corvis demanded.
Heather held up the photograph.
“You’re disgusting,” she said. “Lesbian.”
Corvis turned to me. I raised my eyebrows.
“Don’t try to deny it,” I said. “Just go home.”
The following week, after the picture circulated, everyone kept coming up and asking me if I was okay. As if she had poisoned me.
The Pirates
After Brad and I had sex, I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to do it again, or how often. To dodge it one night, I suggested we steal Scottie’s father’s boat instead.
“Can I take you on an actual date?” Brad asked on the phone, and I said, “Yes, let’s go steal a boat and find some gold.”
Even though Susan and I had shopped for my date outfit with Brad back at Halloween time, we’d never actually done anything but hang out at each other’s houses.