She's the One

Skirt and blouse? Too formal.

Summer dress? Too breezy.

Slacks and a tshirt? Too boring.

I stood in front of my closet holding up outfit after outfit in front my mirror, trying to decide exactly what to wear. Nothing seemed right for a casual bite of pizza between friends. Maybe that was because I was taking it too seriously, as my roommate Holly brusquely pointed out.

“Please tell me you’re not still trying to pick out something to wear tonight?” She jabbed at me rudely for the umpteenth time. “And why are you even hanging out with Sebastian’s weird tranny sister, anyway?”

I gave her the worst glare I could muster and fought back my righteous fury. “She’s not a ‘tranny’, what is wrong with you?!”

“Well let me see, she dressed up like a BOY and perved on all the girls in this school for weeks. Everyone knows she’s a creepy tranny!”

“You never even met her, you had mono the whole time she was here. Maybe you should find something out on your own, for once, and not listen to the bullshit that your little posse makes up.”

Holly snapped her mouth shut and looked as though she was thinking hard on what to say that could disprove me. Before she got a chance, I blurted out: “By the way, you know that the only reason your little friend Rachel talks so much shit about Viola is because she made an ass of herself in front of everyone by flirting with her. Viola might have been dressed like her brother, but she didn’t have to be so nice to save your friends from total embarrassment, since they practically took their clothes off every time she walked by. So shove it up your ass, Holly!” I didn’t mean for that last part to come out… but it had. Judging from her face, she was as shocked to hear it out-loud as I was.

Fortunately for me, she jumped up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her so hard that a picture fell off the wall. That left me to get back to my outfits.

Maybe it was the sudden relief I felt at having defended Viola’s honor so vehemently, but it seemed the “right” outfit popped out at me from my closet. A tight pair of jeans I had just bought and needed breaking in, so they still fit me just a tad bit too tight. Along with a thermal-under-tshirt combination that would keep me warm enough but not look bulky. Now I was truly ready for a friendly, no pressure dinner, with my casual buddy.

If it was so casual, then why was I getting cold sweats? And why did I spend over an hour doing my make-up? And why did I start getting ready over three hours before I was meant to pick her up? As a result, I was too excited to wait, and I got to the Hastings’ house a quarter before 6.

The walkway up to their door was wet from the rain, I was glad that I’d opted not to wear heels at the last minute. Call me strange, but I always liked it that Viola was just a little bit taller than me when we stood side-by-side.

Daphne Hastings, the twins’ mother, answered the door. As always, she was overdressed for simply being at home with her daughter on a weeknight. I’d been to their home unannounced before to see Sebastian, and never caught Daphne in an “off” moment.

Since I was balls-early, Viola was still upstairs getting ready and I was forced into junior league small-talk with her mother. I was surprised to learn that Daphne was still heavily involved despite both her children being too old for the league.

“My mother only goes to the major meetings now that I’ve already had my coming out. She will probably start getting more involved again when my youngest sister gets to sixth grade.”

She looked extremely interested in this news, for some odd reason. “You do have two younger brothers. You know, she could always come to the meetings to find proper ladies for them to date. I just don’t think you can find suitable girls outside of the league, they are always lacking in manners and etiquette.”

I heard Viola’s door opening and I balanced my attention between Mrs. Hastings and the staircase. “I haven’t spoken to her about the Big Mentor program running this weekend, but I may call her tomorrow…” I stopped speaking for good reason. I’d forgotten completely what I was talking about.

Viola Hastings, looking quite unlike I had ever seen her before, was descending her stairs slowly and magnificently. She’d waved and lightened her hair since the last time we met; now it landed just below her shoulders in loose curls. Surprisingly, she wasn’t wearing anything special. In fact, her tshirt and jeans combination was not at all unlike one that I had said “no” to when I was going through outfits earlier. But it was different on her. Everything was different on her. Something definitely had changed her and it was much more than hair, makeup, or clothes. I tried to put my finger on it, but Daphne jerked me out of my embarrassing stare-fest.

“Please do tell your mother. We would love to have her there this weekend. She is more than welcome, and perhaps could bring a skill or project to share with the girls. Does she know any handicrafts?”

“Thanks mom. We’re going.” Viola grabbed my arm and pulled me rapidly toward the door before I could blink. Her mother called out something after us, but it was too muffled for me to make out.

As soon as we were to the walkway, Viola let go of my arm and we walked at a normal pace beside one another.

“It’s great you picked me up, you sure it’s ok?”

“Of course! It’s not like, a long way or anything. I think you live closer to Illyria than you do to Cornwall.” My voice squeaked slightly. I prayed she didn’t notice, and busied myself with getting into the car and starting the engine.

“Yeah, it used to be the opposite when we lived at my dad’s. They are way out in the plateau.” She fiddled with her seatbelt for a minute, then looked at me and smiled. “I’m sorry again for being so dorky on the phone. If you don’t want to talk about prom OR my stupid brother tonight, that’s ok with me. We can talk about anything you want. Like ferrets, for example. Or Harry Potter. Or-”

“It’s fine, really.” I tried my hardest not to burst out laughing at her. She really had no clue that she was being hilarious. “I actually was going to talk to you about prom, when we get there.”

“Nice, I’m psyched. Maybe later you could show me your dress and shoes! I was thinking, if you are still planning to go, I could help you get ready or something. You know, like do your hair.”

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

We smiled at each other (warmly? Was it warm, or did I imagine that?), and I pulled my car out onto the road. On the way to Cesario’s, Viola told me about her strange roommate at college who had a daily ritual of cleaning her braces very loudly. I hardly said a word and simply laughed along with her stories, feeling comfortable and relaxed. It was like nothing had ever happened, and we were two best friends just hanging out like usual.
Somewhere along the road I had an epiphany – the person I’d been waiting and hoping to see emerge one day from Sebastian for nearly two years never did, because it was Viola.

When I pulled into a parking space outside our old hang out, Viola leaned over towards me and mumbled out in her ‘boy’ voice: “Brings back some mem’ries, don’t it, sweet…” She stammered and quickly looked away. “Uh… sorry. When I talk to you, I forget… stuff.”

“Don’t worry, I forget, too.”

She appeared noticeably relieved, and we both went inside.

Once we found a place to sit (a booth, in the corner, away from the bubbly Illyria cheerleading crowds), I remembered that the food there had never been very impressive. In fact, the service wasn’t very good either. We sat for over half an hour talking without any waitresses even acknowledging us. Yet for some strange reason, Cesario’s was consistently “the place” to be. Finally one girl walked by and tossed two menus at us, I guess so at least we would have something to read while we sat and starved to death.

“Are any of the mini pizzas here actually good? I remember half of them tasting like cardboard and the other half were grease-pits.”

Viola scrunched up her nose. “I think the chicken salad is edible, and some of the appetizers probably won’t kill you. Can’t say the same for the sausage supreme slice, which I ate one time back in junior year and ended up in the bathroom for like a week. It was naaaaaasty.”

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to avoid anything with sausage. Why don’t we split a chicken salad, a plate of mozzarella sticks, and bar-be-que chicken wings.”

“Damn, serious? You really eat that stuff? I remember back in high school you were all about green salads and celery.”

I found myself rolling my eyes to that. “I was pretty hung-up on all those diets, but now I figure it’s worth it to spend an extra hour in the gym now and again, in exchange for eating anything I want.”

“Well,” she peered across the table and looked me over, “you sure still look fantastic. In a… athletic, way.”

I couldn’t stop myself from blushing, and she was doing the same, quite heavily.

“I mean, that is… that maybe you could show me some of your moves. No, not moves… work-outs. No, no, not work-outs. Oh man. You want to order? How about food? I find it’s best if I put things in my mouth constantly, so that it’s harder for me to speak. Ever.”

“Food sounds great.” I tried to smile reassuringly, but I couldn’t shake the thought of how adorable she had looked while backtracking. Something inside me wanted to dig a little deeper, to see her face looking that way all night. I knew I should let her off the hook, but I couldn’t manage to. “You know… you’ve done that a few times now.”

She stared intently at her menu. “Done what? Ooh, they have cheese fries.”

“Said things to me like you’re still dressed up in your brother’s clothes. If I weren’t looking right at you, I’d think you were Sebastian. Not your actual brother, Sebastian, but the one I first met and… became friends with.”

“You noticed that too, huh? Weird.” Viola paused for a second, then sighed and set down her menu. “It’s just really strange to talk to you and not try to act the way I’m used to acting around you.”

“What way is that?”

“Just trying to be cool every second, and trying to sound tough and impressive. I’ve known you for years, so I should be over it by now, right? But I still find myself saying the same dumb things to get you to think I’m awesome.”

“I do think you’re awesome.”

For a genuine, vulnerable moment, we looked into each other’s eyes. She broke away first, going back to her menu.

“Thanks. Of course I think you’re awesome too, or I wouldn’t try so hard to be cool, right? Anyway, I wish we’d hung out more often during senior year, so maybe I would have figured out in some tiny way how to be normal.”

“I’m glad we’re hanging out now. I was going through a weird faze last year. I doubt we would have had very much fun together.”

Before she could ask for details, our disappearing waitress managed to find it in her busy heart to grace us with her presence. “You ready or you need a minute?” She barked rudely through her strongly-scented cherry gum.

“No, if we send you away, we might never see the sun again.” Viola mumbled. “We are ready to order! How about a large chicken salad, and the super appetizer plate.”

Our waitress managed to begrudgingly take our order before traipsing off, leaving us alone once more.

“Do you think we’ll get our food before 9 o’clock?”

I checked my watch. It was nearly 7:30. Time was really soaring by. “I hope so. Do you need to get home or something? We can ditch them and pick up McDonald’s. I’m sure she hasn’t put our order in yet.”

“No, no. Not at all. I was just thinking it might be cool to go to the drive-in later, if you wanted. They are showing a Night of the Living Dead marathon tonight. But if you have other plans or… school in the morning, you know.”

Something about the idea of going to a drive-in and sitting in my car with Viola for hours made my heart race. I mentally pawned it off as excitement to hang out with someone, when I rarely went out with friends anymore. “Are you serious? I’d love to go. I’ve always wanted to see those movies, since everyone always goes on about how they are legendary.”

“They weren’t kidding. It’s serious. Awesome. Seriously awesome.”

We both nodded in agreement and there was a sudden awkward silence that followed. Neither one of us had anything to say. Or at least, I had plenty to say, but no nerve to say it. Finally I managed to muster enough.

“Can I ask you something?”

“About my brother?” She shot back quickly.

“No…”

“About Duke?”

I shyly retreated. “Is that weird? It’s none of my business, I know.”

“Actually, it kind of is your business. Irony, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Viola stretched back into her chair as though preparing herself to deliver something huge. “Well, the whole time that I was being… my brother, I was hoping that I could eventually hook up with Duke, as myself. It seemed like a great idea, except the whole time he was also hoping that he could eventually hook himself up, with you.”

I could feel my cheeks growing red, but not in a cute way; in a realization of terrible guilt and embarrassment for what was about to come next.

She continued. “Even after he met me as a girl, and kissed me, he still was more than ready to drop me to get with you. I was able to ignore all that, because when he showed up at the ball to be my date, I was just so happy to finally have him. I didn’t care about anything else except the thought that maybe he had chosen me. But…” she looked down at the table and started ripping up little pieces of her napkin, “he told me later that night that he had only come because he felt he owed me, and wasn’t ready for a relationship with someone who had lied to him. I felt stupid about it for a long time, until eventually I realized that it had nothing to do with what I’d done, and everything to do with him wanting whoever he could be with. You, or me. After it was pretty clear that you and my brother were going to be together and Duke couldn’t make his move there, he came crawling back to me and told me he’d ‘forgiven’ me. I almost fell for it, too. Fortunately, Sebastian told me that just two nights before Duke tried to get with me, he’d had Holly in their dorm room. Duke was trying to get her to fool around with Sebastian, so that you would break up with him.”

“Wait… what? Holly, my roommate? Did they do anything? How did I never hear anything about this?”

“Probably because nothing happened. Seb got pissed off and stormed out. He said that when he left, Holly was still in the room, and he couldn’t say if she did anything with Duke or not. Either way, he knew that it had all been a stupid plan that Duke came up with to try and see if he could get with you one last time, before he ‘settled’ on me.”

“What the hell… Vi, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Instinctively, I reached out and placed my hands over hers. She stopped ripping her poor napkin to shreds, and simply held still underneath my touch.

“You really had nothing to do with it, it’s all right. I’m just glad that I didn’t make any huge mistakes with Duke that I would be regretting now.”

“Me too. I mean, I’m glad for you. Who would have known he could be such an ass?”
Viola chuckled tellingly. “Definitely not me, but maybe I have myself to blame for that. I watched him blow me off repeatedly just for the off-chance he might get with you, but instead of turning me off, it just made me chase him even more.”

Suddenly I noticed that my thumb was stroking the back of her hand softly. She said nothing. It only lasted for a brief second, as our waitress (who officially suffered from the worst possible timing on earth), arrived with our appetizers and I was forced to retract my hands to allow for room on the table.

“Ah, I knew there was nothing that hot-wings couldn’t make better.” Viola quipped, grabbing at the plate hungrily.

I sighed slightly. “This time I think I wouldn’t have minded if the food could have taken ten more minutes.”

“Huh?” Mumbled eloquently through a mouthful of chicken. Same old debutante, Viola Hastings.

“Nothing. I’m starving.” I said with a very intentional smile, and attacked some chicken wings of my own.