Jill Hathaway - Imposter

With my blond hair and blue eyes, everyone who knew her says I’m the spitting image of my mother. I push the photograph back into my pocket. I know it’s dumb to carry it around, but ever since the horror of last fall, it makes me feel like she’s with me. A little.

“So what are you doing today, Dad?” Mattie asks, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing some butter on it. I spear a forkful of eggs and lift them to my mouth.

“It’s a case of polydactyly,” he says. At our blank expressions, he goes on to explain, “The girl was born with an extra digit on her right hand. Today I’m going to remove it.”

I put down my fork.

“I tried to explain to the parents that it would be best to wait until she’s a little older,” he says. “But they aren’t comfortable living with the deformity. I can’t say I blame them, exactly. People can be cruel. . . .”

“The parents are willing to risk surgery just to get rid of an extra finger?” Mattie asks, voicing my own question. It seems wrong to cut a baby just to make her fit into a mold that society is more comfortable with. They’re uneasy with her appearance, so they’ll make her fit in. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been diagnosed with my sliding condition in the womb. Would my parents have thought I was a freak? If there were an operation to make me normal, would they have requested it? I suspect my mom wouldn’t have because I think she was able to slide, too. She regularly suffered fainting spells. I bet, just like me, she found herself sucked into other people’s heads, other people’s lives. Too bad she died before I was ever able to ask her. Now I’ll never know. Whenever I try to broach the subject with my father, he starts talking about something else.

My father doesn’t believe that I can slide. I tried to tell him when it started happening, but he sent me to a shrink who said I was just trying to get attention after my mother died. I’ve tried hard to forgive him for that, for thinking I was lying, for pushing me away when I needed him the most. But sometimes the anger creeps up inside me and I just have to get away from him.

“The parents want to take care of the problem before she’s old enough to remember it,” my father explains.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, pushing my chair back from the table. My father and sister watch me grab my plate and glass, which I rinse off and put into the dishwasher before trudging upstairs. My sleepless night has started to weigh on me, and I wish I could just crawl back into bed.

Rollins, my best friend, will be here in a half hour, and that lifts my spirits a bit. He always knows what to say to cheer me up.

“You look like hell,” Rollins says when I open the door of his old Nissan and slide in. He hands me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Decaf,” he says. “Just like you asked. I don’t know how you drink that shit.”

After taking a sip of the steaming liquid, I lift my middle finger. “Excuse me if I haven’t been sleeping well. I thought cutting the caffeine might help.”

His face goes serious. “The dreams again.”

Unlike Mattie, Rollins knows what really happens in my dreams. That I’m reliving the moment of Zane’s death. He knows what torture it is for me.

“Yup,” I say, taking another sip. “In full Technicolor.”

“Ugh, Vee. I’m sorry.”

At that moment, the back door swings open and Mattie throws herself inside. The whole car fills up with her too-sweet perfume, and I start to gag. “Jesus, Mattie. Did you empty the bottle?”

“Hey,” she snaps. “Someone hogged the shower, so I didn’t get a chance to wash my hair this morning. Do you have any idea who that might have been?”

I give her a sheepish look. I kind of fell asleep a little between washing my hair and putting in the conditioner. Mattie woke me up by pounding on the door and shrieking that she was going to pee her pants if I didn’t open up right away. The only way I was able to appease her was by letting her borrow my black scoop-neck sweater.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

Rollins shifts the car into reverse and backs out of the driveway.

I let my gaze flit from house to house, lawn to lawn, as he maneuvers through our neighborhood, toward the school. Gone are the leaves that littered the lawns months ago, when I was in love with Zane. Snow has been here and melted away, leaving the grass shyly green, the way it is in April, with flowers starting to push up toward the sun. I wonder if I’m taking too long to get over the hurt of Zane’s betrayal, the fact that he knew his mother wanted revenge on my family and let her move forward with her sick plan, even after he fell in love with me. Sometimes I wonder if he ever did really love me. Or if what I felt for him was true love. Because if it was, it just makes me really sad. I always thought that love was supposed to be this pure, renewing thing, but what Zane and I had turned out to be rotten on the inside.

Rollins’s voice slices through my thoughts, bringing me back to the moment. He’s got the White Stripes playing on the stereo, and the doors and floor of the car seem to vibrate with the sound.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I’m sorry. What was it? Something about the radio?”

“I got the internship,” Rollins says excitedly. “At KRNK, the university station? They want me from ten to two on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It’s perfect because I’ll be able to—” He stops himself midsentence and glances at Mattie in the rearview mirror. I know what he’s worrying about: that he almost spilled his big secret, that he has to take care of his mother every night—make her food, give her baths, and even tuck her into bed. He needn’t have stressed, though. I peek in the backseat, and Mattie is thoroughly consumed with her cell phone, probably text-ing Regina, a freshman on the cheerleading squad who Mattie’s become close with in the last couple of months.

Rollins continues, “I’ll still be able to work at Eternally Vinyl on the weekends.”

“That’s great,” I say.

“Yeah. I’m starting tonight. You’ll listen, right?”

“Of course,” I say. “You need at least one listener for your big debut, right?”

Rollins reaches over and punches my shoulder playfully. I massage the place where he made contact and pout, pretending to be hurt. His eyes meet mine, and I hope he knows, despite my joking, that I would do anything for him. Ever since he pulled me out of a burning building last fall and confessed his feelings for me, there’s been this growing thing between us. It’s like neither of us wants to explore it just in case it ruins our friendship. And, truthfully, after the way my relationship with Zane ended, I’m not sure I can handle another heartbreak.

We pull into the school parking lot, and Mattie leaps from the backseat the minute Rollins cuts the engine. She’s been hanging out with Rollins and me more since her best friends were killed, but when she’s at school, she’d much rather be with the rest of the girls on the Pom squad. They all banded together closely after losing two of their cheerleaders, almost as if they’re grasping for some sort of normalcy during such an insane year.

I hoist my backpack over my shoulder and follow Rollins across the parking lot. As soon as I step inside the school, I freeze. The place looks nothing like it did when I left yesterday. Pink and gold streamers are strewn everywhere. Across from the front entrance, there’s a long, rectangular folding table. It, too, has been decorated with gold paper and pink balloons. Above it all hangs a sign that says IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN! BUY YOUR PROM TICKETS HERE!

Ugh. I totally forgot.

Mattie was yapping on and on last night about how prom tickets were going on sale today. She was all depressed because she was sure no one would ask her to the dance, which is totally ludicrous because not only is Mattie one of the most popular girls in the freshman class, but all the freshman guys are in love with her. Why wouldn’t they be? She looks like Cheerleader Barbie.