The Imposter

I’m finishing my bowl of Captain Crunch and already Stephen is walking around the house with a big feather duster. Father carries chairs out to the deck. Today is the party.

Father gives me a peck on the cheek. “You really up for this? We could cancel, say you were sick or something.”

I shake my head. All I have to do is hold myself together for a couple of hours, smile and play nice. I head to my room to get ready, brushing my hair and putting on makeup and trying to get myself psyched for my role. A few distant relatives are coming, plus the Pink Posse and some old friends of the family. Apparently, I only have one uncle, and he lives down south somewhere. My only living grandparent, my mother’s mom, lives in a care home and has even more serious mental issues than I do, according to Stephen.

Everyone coming today expects to see their beloved Jessica. But I know something they don’t: the Girl is not going to show up. She’s pulled a vanishing act and left me as a body double.

The doorbell rings once, then again. Guests are arriving. I look over at the dress on my bed, the floral getup Mother picked out for me on our shopping trip. Maybe Jessie didn’t mind dressing this way. Maybe she felt pretty in that sweet Mommy’s-girl look. Something of the old Jessie must still be in me, though, because I rise from the chair and slip the dress over my head. Tugging on the bottom of the dress, I stand in front of the mirror and force my mouth into the biggest grin possible.

I practice. “Hi. Oh, hello. Of course! How could I forget you?”

The door pops open and Stephen pokes his head inside. “Hey, Mom’s going to have a fit if you don’t get your fancy behind down there.”

“Do you mind?” I say. “You could at least knock.”

He gives himself a mock slap across the face. “Terribly sorry. But can you come already? I’m tired of having my cheeks pinched.”

How could I be mad at a goof like that? I nod and step out the door. Stephen grabs my hand and forces me to take my first step down the stairs. Images from home movies play in my mind: me screeching and tossing water balloons at Megan, her pigtails bouncing as she bolts across the lawn; me giving a heart-rending performance of “Hot Cross Buns” on my recorder for my parents’ friends; me twirling across the living room in Father’s arms, my feet resting on his as he dances a crazy spinning dance. Me, me, me, doing things I don’t recall doing. My feet stop at the bottom of the stairs, refusing to move forward into the living room.

“Don’t worry,” Stephen whispers, “they’re all harmless.” He guides me gently, his hand on my back, through the doorway.

The harmless people turn out to be three older couples (obviously more Mother and Father’s crowd than mine), who hover around an array of appetizers on the coffee table. My pals, the Pink Posse, are hanging out in the corner by the piano, and a few others are out on the deck. Everyone is chatting, but the words fade and stop when they notice Stephen and me in the doorway. Two women glance in my direction and then pretend to be fascinated with the chips and dip, but most of the people keep on looking at me.

“Hola,” I say. Megan laughs, a little too enthusiastically, and one of the middle-aged women stands up and steps toward me as Mother enters from the kitchen.

“Jessica, hello,” the woman declares as she spreads her arms open. I step back a little, but the woman lunges forward and gives me an upper-body squeeze so fast that I have no time to resist. “Gosh, we’re happy to see you!” she announces. “And you’re as pretty as a picture in that dress.”

I pull myself out of her grip, bumping into the wall as I step backward. Then Father is there, smiling. “Must be the good genes,” he quips, and the room erupts in laughter.

Mother crosses the room with half a watermelon cut into a bowl; there are chunks of fruit on wooden skewers jutting from it. She places it on the coffee table. “Have a seat, Jess. ”

I walk past the oldies, who are now ooohing and aaahing over Mother’s fruit artistry, and make my way to Father’s brown recliner. My friends nod and smile with their matching glossy lips. I’m suddenly ultra-aware of my dress and how obvious it is that it was chosen by a forty-something-year-old and accepted by a teenager with no mind of her own. Their clothes have more edge: there are studs on Cybil’s flowing top and on Megan’s leather wristband. Kerry’s dress is lime green. Their outfits have personality. Mine shows a lack of one. I slide into a chair next to them and try to take a subtle deep breath.

Megan leans over and whispers, “How goes the battle, Jess?”

“I’m losing,” I whisper back. But I must look too serious when I say it, because she doesn’t laugh. “And Megan, sorry about the cupcake. My bad.”

Her face goes pink, and I can tell by the looks the other girls exchange that Megan has told them about the incident. “No big deal,” she says. “It’s kind of funny, now that I think of it.”

“Hey,” Cybil adds, “I’ve wanted to do that for years!” Megan whacks her on the shoulder, and then they are all laughing and I am too, relieved. Maybe it really was no big deal; maybe that’s what teenagers are like, off-the-wall and unpredictable.

The girls banter back and forth for a while, teasing each other about stuff I am clueless about. I chuckle every now and then, thinking, I am Jessica, I am Jessica, they’re my friends. Stephen and some other boy run around the house screeching, attacking each other with foam swords. I wish I could play with them, but I know today is not the day.

The adults are all laughing and having a grand old time, and it feels like a real party. I’m proud of myself. Go, me, go. I stand up to head over and check out Mother’s spread, but Cybil stops me with a tap on the shoulder. “Jessica, I brought something for you.” She reaches in her pocket and then places a smooth lump in my hand. When I open my fingers, two beady little eyes gawk up at me from a green body.

Cybil clears her throat. “He’s a yoga frog.”

I turn the shiny statue around, but he looks like a regular frog to me: legs stretched out behind him, front legs straight down in front.

She leans closer, pointing at her gift. “That’s the frog pose. The one you busted a gut over.”

This meant something to the old Jessie, and Cybil couldn’t possibly know that the new Jessie hates these smug little amphibians. But I am not good at hiding my disdain, obviously, because her face flushes. “It’s lame, I know.”

“No, no, I like it,” I say. The girls are all looking at me, waiting. “Honestly. It’s…cute.”

I’m such a jerk. All I can think about suddenly is Lucky Charms and how great a bowl of sugary sweetness would taste right now. It might be a social faux pas to eat cereal at a party, though, so I’ll have to settle for a cookie. I walk over to the coffee table.

There are a few conversations going on—“Did you see that new sign Rosie put up for the café? It’s butt-ugly,” and “There was a dead moose off Highway 22 the other day”—but a hush falls over the room as I inspect the platter of squares and cookies. I feel eyes on me as I select a giant chocolate-chip specimen and place it carefully on a napkin. My legs are wobbly, like the carpet has waves, and I have to concentrate to stay balanced.

I remember my promise to my parents: if it’s too much, I will go rest. Maybe five minutes in my room is what I need, before I do something humiliating like toss the giant Frisbee of a cookie at someone’s head. I bolt up the stairs quickly and lock my bedroom door behind me.

I walk over to the shelves where all the little froggies hang out. My gift from Cybil is still clenched in my fist, and I lift my arm to introduce him to his homies. But when I place him down, a force stronger than myself takes over.

My arm swings out and swipes at the dopey, cutesy frogs, sending them flying from the shelves in different directions. Some land with cracking sounds on the hardwood floors; some land with a thud on the area rug. I could keep going—it would be so satisfying to stomp on the frogs and hurl them at the walls, to go completely ballistic.

But instead, I wrap my arms tightly around myself and take deep breaths. I’ve held it together at the party, given the family the fun they deserve. It’s almost over.

Hands shaking, I pick the frogs up one by one and place them back in their spots on the shelves. Some of them are missing an arm or a leg; one has a cracked head. “Don’t tell anyone,” I whisper. I check myself out in the mirror—lip gloss is fine, no signs of a mental breakdown—and head calmly back downstairs. Mother comes out of the kitchen carrying a cake, and I sing “Happy Birthday” along with everyone like nothing has happened.

Soon after the cake is gone, guests are standing up to leave and some are already by the door. I walk over to Cybil and give her a one-armed hug. “Thanks for the frog. I love it.” She looks so pleased.

More guests put their coats on, and I shake some hands and say, “Thank you all for coming,” a big smile on my face. I think about those disfigured frogs up in my room, and how easy it is to play the role of a regular, well-adjusted teenager being friendly at a party. I’m like a serial killer, with body parts in my freezer, hosting a dinner party. No one knows my dirty little secret: I am not at all who they think I am. And, equally creepy, who I truly am is yet to be determined.

As I wave goodbye through the window, a realization slowly sinks in. Dr. K. asked me what I thought normal was, but maybe it doesn’t matter. I don’t actually have to feel normal. All I have to do is fake it.

That night while the family sleeps, I sit in the dark with my phone in my hand. There’s no one to text, nothing funny or weird anyone has posted on Facebook. I flip through the shots in the camera roll: Megan and the Pink Posse in ski gear, a heart-shaped cake, a coat hanging on a store rack, a sunset…nothing I haven’t seen before. But then something I haven’t seen before: row upon row of tiny photos of the Girl, up close. A long series of selfies.

The background is the monkey poster on the wall behind the bed—the very wall behind me now. I am surprised to see, when I enlarge the thumbnail of the first photo, how different the Girl looks. She’s got on dark eyeliner and what could be fake eyelashes, and pink metallic lipstick. A scarf, a deep cherry red, is draped around her neck. From photo to photo, her expression changes from pouting to defiance to an attempt at being seductive. There are dozens of photos like that, and for some she has moved the scarf so that it covers her mouth like a veil or draped it dramatically around her head.

I have no way of knowing what the photos were for, if she was trying to be artsy or was simply having fun or had an audience in mind—that boy she liked, Harrison?—when she took them. Whatever their purpose, something about them bothers me. Maybe it’s the eagerness in her eyes, the sense of desperation. They’re so contrived they’re almost pathetic. I click on them one by one and hit Delete. I’m sorry, Girl, I think, but one day you’ll thank me.