Someone Else

Someone picks at her nail polish. Someone keeps checking her phone. Someone complains it’s too hot; someone asks how much longer this is going to take. Someone wants to grab pizza when it’s over. All the someones agree on thin crust, because prom is right around the corner and their dresses have already been bought. More than one of the adults standing in the back row turn to look at all the someones chattering about thin crust. Someone feels their eyes on them and tells the other someones to keep it down. Someone remembers the yellow polka dot two-piece her mom bought her that summer, how she tugged at the material, willing her body to spill over like her big sister’s did. Someone remembers how hot it was, how they all raced their slick porpoise bodies through the water, orange buoys bobbing in the lake, first one to touch a buoy winning the round, again and again and again, until all the someones’ moms ordered them out and slathered more Coppertone up and down their scrawny bodies as they hopped from foot to foot on the burning sand. Someone remembers eating so many hot dogs she puked behind the concession stand, says she missed all of it, never saw a thing. Someone remembers a van at the far end of the parking lot. Someone tells her she watches too many crime shows. Someone wonders if it’s possible the girl could be living with a new family somewhere else, says she’s heard of that happening. Someone who always has an answer for everything says after all these years statistics show it’ll probably be hunters that come across the bones one day. All the someones can’t think of anything so terrible as that. Someone asks, Was it Marsha? Marci? Melinda? Someone says, No, dummy, it was Melissa. All the someones clamp their hands over their glossed lips, because suddenly it all feels so funny and overwhelming and when is this thing going to end plant the tree and unveil the plaque already, which makes someone want to forget she’s stealing more and more of her stepmom’s little blue pills, someone’s big brother is heading back to jail, and someone’s parents are fighting in court again. Someone wonders if someone loves her back, she’ll ask later when it’s just the two of them left at the table, their reflections shimmering and dancing and alive in the pizza joint’s windows. The night beyond like someone else, distant and dimmed.