The empty chair in the back of the room isn’t empty anymore. I look and then do a double take.
Makeover. Big time.
The long hair is gone. It’s cut very short, almost wispy, pixie style. No one in the universe could wear it that way. Except Amber. The absence of long hair seems to remove all distractions so that her green eyes and perfect nose stand out that much more, highlighting her ethereal beauty. The black, fitted knit dress with long sleeves and black alligator heels don’t hurt either. Not exactly a run-of-the-mill school outfit, and everyone notices in a good way. Amber didn’t just slip back into school; she made her red-carpet entrance.
For the first time, everyone seems as fascinated with Amber as I am. I look at her and smile. She smiles back. I don’t want to gawk like a stupid groupie, so I don’t turn around for the rest of the class.
Josh is in the front row, head swiveled around. Too bad the blackboard isn’t in the back of the room because then he’d be paying complete attention. I get the feeling he’s as surprised by seeing her with the new haircut—or just seeing her—as everyone else is. Amber gets off on surprising people. I think it’s her way of testing the boundaries of loyalty.
After exaggerated throat-clearing, Mrs. M. calls on Josh who has been paying attention to nothing other than whether Amber has been receiving the sexual impulses he’s been wafting out to her.
“Sorry,” Josh says, turning back to Mrs. M. with an embarrassed grin. She fixes him with a long, paralyzing stare before repeating the question. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t know. Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.
“It would behoove you to pay closer attention, Mr. Ryan.”
“Behoove?” says a whispery voice from the back of the room. Someone else snickers. Mrs. M. silences the class with her penetrating glare.
When the bell rings, I close my notebook. Amber walks over to my desk.
“When did you get back?”
“Last night,” she says.
She’s wearing the blank face. Josh hangs back behind her, waiting. His eyes are cast downward, mesmerized by her sheer black stockings and the four-inch stilettos.
“How’s your mom?”
She shrugs. “Getting better, I think. They’re trying some new medicine.”
There’s an awkward silence. “Good,” I say. “You look cool.”
She looks down at her skirt. “My mom’s clothes from her modeling days.”
Her outfit looks like something Mel would be all over. I expect Amber to turn and go, but she stands there.
“I guess I’ll see you later,” I come up with. Lame, but I can’t think of anything better. She turns to Josh, and as they walk off, he slips his arm around her waist. With her high heels, she’s as tall as he is.
When I get home that afternoon, I’m still thinking about Amber and how she looked, and I decide to pretend—like I’m playing charades by myself—that I’m going to be Amber. I am not on drugs, so where did I get the wacko idea to play this impersonation game?
If you think something, you can make it happen, people say. That doesn’t mean I’ve lost it and I think I can turn into an Amber clone. It just means that all of us probably have a hand in the way fate works. We should definitely play all our cards to make things come out the way we want them to, and not roll up into a ball and play dead if our lives aren’t perfect.
So like a windup doll, I strut around my room trying to act and feel like someone who’s totally okay with herself. And even though I’d never admit it to a living soul, I’m having fun inside the head and body of this new, genetically improved, bionic Allie doll.
I slip on my one pair of high heels and take long runway strides, head held high. Abracadabra, I’m five ten, one hundred twenty pounds, and drop-dead gorgeous. Women all over the planet would kill to be me, Allie Johnston. I whisper my name like I’m a sultry, cover girl. Allie Johnston. I change the look in my eyes. I walk with total confidence and sizzling sex appeal. I’m hot, I say to myself, like I’m Mel.
I’m hot, hot, hot, hot, so hot, hot, hot!
You can do this, a smug little voice inside me says. You can literally become the person you want to be. It’s all a matter of the thoughts you put in your head and carry around with you.
It’s up to you! the voice says, like my inner confidence coach, my cheerleader.
I’m strutting from one end of my room to the other, Miss Total Hot-Shit Goddess of the Universe, teen idol, the envy of girls everywhere.
“Dinner’s ready!” The door flings open and my mom stands there. Her face shows she does not understand this.
Unfortunately the earth doesn’t open up and swallow me.
“I’m rehearsing a part for the school play,” I yell like a bomb exploded in me so she doesn’t think I’m high. “Would you mind closing the door?”
“Oh.” She nods, closing it behind her.
I kick off the heels so they go airborne, disappearing behind the bed, along with the hot-shit goddess with the loud mouth. The person left is the real, lukewarm loser, Allie Johnston.
Or not.
I put on my pink, furry slippers and make my way into the kitchen.
Hot, hot, hot. I laugh to myself. Inside my head this time.