Color Me Stranger

Warning: The following story has material of sensitive nature to include sexual assault, mental illness and violence. Reader discretion is advised.

 Daddy was an old fashioned cowboy before he died. He did various sorts of ranch work until he was gored to death by a bull. It happened just after I was born and we moved to Los Nemeses, Texas. Momma keeps a picture of him at home. In it he is wearing a Stetson and riding a horse. Even though I did not know him, I like to imagine him giving me that sage advice you might expect from an old trail-hand. He seemed the kind of man to say, “Pure cussedness will take you farther in life than a Comanche pony.” He would probably say it while smoking cigarettes he had rolled himself.

That’s how I like to imagine Daddy to be: Larger than life and having all the answers. I reckon I wish he was here now more than ever. He might have told me to watch close when a stranger comes knocking. I know that I must have some kind of cussedness in me for me to do what I did, but I wonder if any of it would have gone this far if Daddy was alive.

We don’t get too many new students at Los Nemeses High so the new face stood out to me almost immediately. I had not really wanted to go to the dance. The gymnasium was tiny and some bright soul in the PTA had decided to cover one wall of the gym in mirrors to make the place seem bigger and brighter. It was gaudy, but my best friend, Kelsey, talked me into it. I told Kelsey about the stranger, but she was too busy grinding on her new boyfriend Mike Crawley to pay attention. That girl is going to be knocked up in a couple years. She’ll rear for any steer, I swear.

The stranger had come without a date or any other friends. I saw her sitting on the bleachers all by herself. I remembered what it was like to be a new face at a dance so I broke off to introduce myself. I could tell she was uncomfortable. She was pretty though, with raven-black hair and blue eyes. Her dark dress accentuated her own natural curves and didn’t show too much skin. She looked...classy and mature. Kelsey could use some lessons in that area. There was no reason she could not fit in here. I was honestly surprised that one of the boys hadn’t snatched her up to dance.

“I love your dress,” I said, coming over and standing in front of her. I told her my name and held out my hand to shake. “It looks so good on you. What’s your name? I’ve never seen you before.”

You know what that bitch did? She didn’t even look at me! I stood right in front of her. She just stared right through me like I wasn’t there. I dropped my hand and turned around to see who or what she was looking at. I saw Terry DeBriar chatting with a group of girls. That wasn’t surprising.

Terry was cute. Like, super cute. All the girls around town talked about him. I think that everyone had fantasized about him at some point. Hell I’m pretty sure that some of my friends’ mommas had fantasized about him at some point. He worked summers cleaning pools around town. When he was shirtless, a girl could watch his muscles ripple under his insulin pump. I don’t know why, but that little plastic imperfection hanging from his hip made the rest of his body all the better.

I turned back around and smiled at her. “That’s Terry DeBriar, local stud,” I said. “My friend Kelsey says that he likes girls with black hair. You should go and ask him to dance.” Kelsey hadn’t said any such thing. I mean, Terry did like girls with black hair. I knew because I had it bad for Terry. One night, several months ago, I decided to try and dye my blond curls. It had turned out awful and I barely survived the humiliation. But this girl was so pretty. All she needed was a little push to get out there on the dance floor. One dance with Terry and her social life at Los Nemeses High would be off to the perfect start. The Good Book said that it was Christ-like to do good unto others. If she also happened to remember I did her a good turn, then all the better.

She didn’t say anything for a second, but stood up and looked me square in the face. It was weird because she stood so very close to me. She looked over my shoulder at Terry and then turned her eyes on me. As she walked past me she only said one thing, “You don’t stand a chance angel.” I just stood there in shock. So much for doing the Christian thing. Who did this bitch think she was? My sage cowboy Daddy would think it wrong to shoot someone in the back, but she had pissed me off. I turned and readied the most vicious verbal bullet that I could. I stopped short. She was already standing by Terry and talking to him. He was smiling too. I would have to shout to be heard and then I’d just look like I was picking on the new girl. Damn, this girl was fast on the draw. She even started holding his hand!

Now I know that if Momma could hear me she’d say I was being petty, but isn’t that idea somewhat hypocritical? When someone tries to do something nice for you and it falls through, what happens? “It’s the thought that counts,” everyone will say. Well I think it should work in reverse. Wasn’t it Jesus who said that even to think about doing wrong was just as good as doing the sin itself? That’s what Pastor Bill always said.

Though, I doubt that Pastor Bill has ever been called out as a slut by Bailey Garrett at high noon for wearing a skirt that was too short. For Los Nemeses girls, it is kill or be killed and you have to keep your head on a swivel. “It’s lawless country out here”, my imaginary cowboy dad might say. Boys can’t understand that. They just hit each other a few times and go home. Kid stuff. Girls play for keeps. Shelly Richardson had a rumor started that she was pregnant last year. She didn’t eat for so long that she was hospitalized in Austin for a month. Words are bullets in high school, and I’d just been shot down like a dog in the street. I looked around. Kelsey and her newest boyfriend were busy making out in the corner. I turned and went home, tail between my legs.

It didn’t take me long to find out the stranger’s name was Angelica Martin. It took even less time for me to see that she was a queen bitch. I’d seen lots of spiteful varmints come through the doors of Los Nemeses High, but Angelica was a beast all her own. She was mean as a snake and twice as fast with her words. I watched her send three girls crying from the cafeteria in her first week. She had only said a few words to each of them. I never found out what she said. It must have been bad because the girls wouldn’t even look at me when I mentioned it.

What was worse is that Angelica was clearly sore with me. It was obvious from the first day I saw her in class. She was wearing the exact same outfit as me. She was wearing it better of course, but that was not a surprise. She would have looked fantastic wearing a garbage bag.

I shrugged it off, but it happened again, and then again, and then again. For weeks. One day I caught her alone in the bathroom and asked her to stop whatever game she was playing. She had been washing her hands. She slowly turned off the water to look at me. Just like at the dance she only said one thing, “You don’t stand a chance little angel.”

I don’t know what it was about those words that struck me dumb, but I just stood there as she walked away. What the hell was wrong with this girl? If she wanted a fight, by God I’d be fighting back back. I saw her around school with Terry DeBriar and had even seen the two of them get into his car when they were leaving school. I told Kelsey that they were totally hooking up. There was no way she could keep that to herself. Pretty soon everyone in school was talking about it. I thought I had actually scored a hit. Nothing happened though. The girls just seemed jealous of her, and the boys seemed jealous of Terry. She was bulletproof, and she was stalking me to wear my clothes. It was a nightmare.

That’s why I was so surprised when Terry knocked on my door and asked me to the carnival with him. It came through Los Nemeses every summer and set up shop in the old potter’s field outside town. One afternoon, after ducking Angelica all day at school, I answered the door to see him standing on my front porch. Momma was out and I knew how she’d feel about me having boys in the house so I talked to him on our front porch.

He asked me about the carnival straight away and if I wanted to go with him. I think my heart stopped beating. I asked him if he wouldn’t rather go with his girlfriend, but he just laughed at me like I had made a joke and asked what time he could pick me up. I felt so powerful in that moment. This was no bullet to Angelica. It would be a cannonball. Terry and I arranged to do a double date with Kelsey and Mike. Kelsey had to see this.

The night of the carnival was going great at first. Terry and I took the long walk to the carnival. I even held his hand. Kelsey and Mike met us there. They were late of course. Kelsey said she had to get her face painted to look like a dog. She winked at Mike when she said it. That girl is gross.

We all walked around the carnival for a while when, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw Angelica. She smiled and crooked a finger at me. She ducked into the Haunted Hall of Mirors. I think every carnival has one. I had had enough of this bitch.

The boys were distracted buying funnel cake so I grabbed Kelsey and pulled her with me to chase Angelica. The maze was empty except for us. I saw a shadow turn a corner and pulled Kelsey with me. I was finally going to have it out with Angelica. I had her. She was cornered in a dead end of the mirror maze, staring at us in helpless rage. Kelsey pulled her hand free of mine and asked, “Who they hell are we chasing?”

I was immediately confused. Maybe all that time around Mike had made her dumb. Angelica was right there. Didn’t she see? I grabbed her arm and turned her to look. “Oww! What the hell?” she said. I ignored her and told her to look again. She stepped back from me with wide eyes. “Look, I don’t know what is going on with you Angelica Martin, but you need to take some series de-bitching meds.”

The carnival outside went silent as a grave. “Why did you call me that?” I asked her. She just cocked her head at me eyebrows narrowed. It might have been funny if I weren’t so scared. With her face paint, she looked like a dog that had just watched its owner magically disappear a ball.

“It isn’t funny anymore Angelica,” she replied. “At homecoming dance it was cute. Psyching yourself up in front of that stupid mirror wall was adorable. Look, it worked! You’re hooking up with Terry. But if you don’t tone down the crazy, I’m going to tell your mother what you and Terry are doing.”

Kelsey jerked her arm out of my hand and left the Mirror House, leaving me alone with Angelica. I turned to look at her in the mirror. I raised my right and she raised her left. Looking into my eyes she smiled at me. She opened her mouth, but the words that came out were in my voice.

“I told you that you didn’t stand a chance,” she said. I couldn’t believe this. Why was she trying to ruin my life? First, she stalked me to copy my clothes. Now she was trying to sabotage my friendship with Kelsey? I asked her if this was about Terry. She just smiled and beckoned me closer. I stomped closer, ready to slap her across the face.

When I got so close I thought our noses would touch, Angelica disappeared. She was just gone! Instead I was staring into the mirror behind her, and it was...strange. It was not like looking in a mirror. It was like looking through a window. I saw myself at home. I was sitting with Momma in the bathroom. She was helping me dye my hair black, but it was different than how I remembered. This time, it had worked. My hair looked great! Momma helped me do my makeup and I looked classy. I looked mature. I looked like Angelica.

The scene in the mirror shifted as I saw myself standing on Terry DeBriar’s front porch in a short skirt. Terry looked so handsome when he opened the door, I almost reached out for him. I watched him invite me in and we talked on his couch for a while. Then out of nowhere, we started kissing. I was surprised. I would have remembered kissing Terry Debriar. It went on for a while. He was a good kisser. The Plan had worked.

That wasn’t right. I recalled that night. This was not how it happened. This had been The Plan, though. I was going to dye my hair his favorite color and tell him how much I loved him. It didn’t happen though. The dye didn’t work. I stayed at home, crying in my room while Momma went to the night service at church.

My heart began to race as I watched him pick me up and bring me to his room. He laid me down on his bed and began to touch me. I felt my body get hot. It was bizarre watching this, but the ‘me’ in the mirror seemed to be liking it.

“I told you that you didn’t stand a chance little angel,” said a voice behind me. I turned and saw Angelica in the mirror behind me. Her eyes seemed so sad. She pointed back to what I’d been watching. Something was wrong. I felt a pain on my wrists. Terry was holding my hands down. My belly was sore. I watched Terry moving on top of me. I hadn’t wanted this. I was crazy about him, but I didn’t want this. He had seemed so beautiful before. Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched Terry hold me there so he could finish. I felt ugly pain low in my guts. My wrists chafed. I watched as Terry’s mouth moved, talking to me as I laid on his bed. I could not hear his words.

“He said he would make an honest woman of us angel. You wanted to believe him, but I could not,” Angelica said putting her hand on my shoulder. “He can’t make an honest woman of us angel. He would have to be an honest man to do that.”

I suddenly understood then. I’m not sure how to explain it, but I knew now how Angelica kept wearing my clothes. The moment I dyed my hair for Terry, I became someone else. I had always been Angelica Martin, but I became Angelica Martin, the stranger who came knocking. I had been watching myself from the mirrors. Angelica was right. I never stood a chance against Terry.

I felt Angelica’s arms wrap around me as I buried my face in my hands and cried. Who was I now? Was I the Angelica who loved Terry? Was I the Angelica who hated Terry? Was it both? Neither? Angelica held me and soothed me until I was all out of sobs. I heard her whisper in my ear, “We can make him honest little angel.” I felt something small and cool roll into my hands. No, two somethings. It was a small vial of clear liquid and a syringe with a needle. Angelica whispered again into my ear, “We can make him honest.”

Angelica broke up with Terry that night on his front porch. She said she was leaving town. A week after the carnival there was a schoolwide moment of silence for Terry DeBriar. It was a tragedy. The principal gave a speech about a young man, well loved by his small Texas community, who had been taken long before his time.

Pastor Bill led us in a prayer for peace and serenity in the face of tragic mystery. Insulin overdose was rare. Had his pump failed? No one knew. He had been found comatose the day after the carnival, his flawless body only marked by Angelica’s love bites. That surprised no one. Everyone knew they were hooking up. I let the black grow out of my hair. After it was gone, I never saw Angelica Martin again. The stranger in the mirror still hasn't left town. I don't know if she ever will.