Life by Committee (5 page)

Secret:

I wish I were hotter.

—Agnes

Secret:

I drive drunk. Often. There have been some seriously close calls.

—@sshole

Morning Assembly.

It's the kind of crap Circle Community Day School comes up with: most days we have a twenty-minute Morning Assembly, where we get school announcements in the auditorium. Every Thursday morning the headmaster hires a speaker for an hour (sometimes academic, sometimes inspirational, always boring), and the tiny student body, all three hundred of us, settles into our squeaky, itchy seats and tries to not get caught napping. So basically, thank God it's Wednesday.

I'm procrastinating outside the auditorium and hoping Elise will come by, until I remember I can't tell her anything about last night and Joe and the things I've done that feel great but make me terrible. Even without reassurance from him online last night, I smile thinking his name. I replay the kisses in my head, the moments before the kisses too, and I worry the spaces between my
ribs are being literally crushed with feelings.

I do some imitation of Cate and Paul's yoga breathing, but it only makes me more hyped up, more ready to explode. I was certain it was best not to let Elise in on the secret that I am a bad person who makes out with other people's boyfriends, but the more I breathe, the more convinced I am that the words will spill out from physical necessity.

Sun's streaming in the floor-to-ceiling windows, and grumpy kids in fleece and corduroy are all squinting against the light. Joe walks by with Sasha. I reach for my hair on autopilot, push it behind my shoulders, and try to look normal.

“Please, no,” Elise says, coming up behind me and squeezing my sides so that I jump in surprise. She gives me a good, hard stare, like I'm in trouble. Which, given Elise's distrust of hockey-playing cheaters, is probably exactly what she thinks I am. “Aren't we done with the Joe Donavetti crap yet?”

“I know, I know. I'm the worst. The League of Great Feminists from Throughout History will come down and haunt me.” I wrap an arm across my body so that my hand rests around my ribs and tell the words and feelings to stay there and chill out.

“I'm not kidding, Tab. He's gross. And everyone loves
his girlfriend. So get that look off your face.”

The unspoken end of that thought:
You've lost enough friends already. Don't make it worse
. She notices my wince and shakes her head, like she's forgotten herself.

“You can do so much better, is all I mean. You're fucking gorgeous. And hilarious. Basically I'm obsessed with you, and your future boyfriend will be too.” Elise bumps my hip with hers, and I get a lift from her words because she says them with such total sincerity that I think they might be true.

Except Joe's the one I want.

We follow Joe and Sasha into the assembly hall, and I don't even try to stop looking at them. I want a glimpse of his lips. It will feed the total bliss I feel at having kissed them.

Elise and I sit a few rows behind them, and I watch the hair on the back of Joe's head, looking for meaning. I know he wants to get out from under her thumb. He tells me he does every night. But his arm is around her, and I think from the way her body sort of shudders against his that she's crying.

Sasha Cotton is always crying.

“All right, lady, you obviously need to talk, so talk,” Elise says with a huge sigh. Her lip is curled in disgust at having to listen to this, but she's a good friend, so she
leans in, elbow on my armrest, chin on her fist, and gets ready for my gushing. “What's the update?” Assembly must be running late. The headmaster hasn't made his way onto the stage yet, and the din of voices isn't dying down.

The thing about Elise is, she comes around. She hasn't been the greatest listener lately, but she certainly
tries
. I don't tell her about the kissing or his running away; I just tell her about a conversation Joe and I had a few days ago online. I am desperate for her to approve of me and Joe, so that someday I can tell her the whole story.

“Well, so Joe did tell me that Sasha's on some new antidepressant medication. So as soon as she adjusts, he'll break up with her and—”

“Are they sleeping together?” Elise interrupts. It's the question we ask about every couple lately, but I haven't tried to find out about Joe and Sasha yet. I don't think I want to know the answer.

I shake my head and shrug and sigh all at once, and Elise adjusts her black T-shirt. She buttons and unbuttons the snaps on the brown leather cuff she wears on her right wrist. She musses up her own pixie cut and leans back in her seat.

“I guess I'm asking because they're passing out the lit journal today, and I hear she's got a poem in it,” Elise
says, choosing her words so carefully, I don't even recognize the rhythm of her voice as her own. Sasha has cupped her hand around the back of Joe's neck. It's the kind of gesture I've seen Cate and Paul do, and I shudder at the thought of Joe and Sasha as some kind of old married couple: comfortable, impenetrable, and in love.

“Hm?” I say.

“Heather said something. About Sasha's poem,” Elise goes on. I'm so sick of hearing about her new friend Heather and their amazing connection that I don't immediately ask a follow-up question, even though the words she's saying and their vaguely ominous meaning make my stomach twist. Not to mention I owe her a good listen after she listened to me talk about Joe without gagging.

“What, did Sasha write about, like, dark thoughts and unicorns and Sylvia Plath or something?” I just can't stand the weepy pseudo-deepness that is Sasha Cotton. But she's fooling everyone else, I guess. Even the lit journal. Even Joe. He's whispering something into her ear, and I swear the feeling travels right to the skin of
my
ear. I shudder from the abrupt desire. I want his lips to be on my ear so badly, I could scream. I force myself to swallow instead.

“I know she's lame,” Elise says, “but she's smart, too. And sort of . . . weirdly sexy. So, I don't know. Just be
prepared. I heard her poem is kinda . . .” Elise can't seem to come up with the right word, so she makes her eyes go wide and shimmies her shoulders a little. I want to ask for more, but the announcements are starting and the teachers are on high alert, so we both shut up. There's that rumble of nerves in my stomach, and I grab Elise's arm for support. She pats my hand quickly and then slides her arm out from under my grip.

After twenty minutes of reminders to buy baked goods at Friday's sale, and to not park in faculty spots, we're dismissed for first period. On our way out of the hall, as promised, Heather and the other literary magazine evangelists hand out
Libretto
, the journal they produce every other month that is chock-full of tortured poetry, SAT-word-heavy short stories, and black-and-white self-portraits. Everyone is obsessed with
Libretto
. It's like a barometer for the gossip in the school: who is in love, who is breaking up, who is losing it, who's fighting, who's got family issues, who's talented and artsy versus who is just annoying.

I've submitted some writing, and it never gets in. That's the embarrassing truth that makes me hate them even more.

Elise has a self-portrait on page three: spiky hair, duct-tape-
covered mouth, sleepy-sad look in her eyes. She told me the photograph's title is “Out,” but in
Libretto
they're calling it “Just Me.” Elise may be a lot of things, but she's not
out
. People suspect. People make fun. People ask me about it. But the simple declarative “I'm gay” has only ever passed through her lips when she's talking to me.

I'm proud of her, though. The photograph is a step.

I flip through more of the magazine: sketches of the mountains, photographs of inanimate objects, someone's poem about their dead uncle.

Then there's Sasha's poem. It's not long. It's extra deep because she uses slashes instead of line breaks, like a real Artist.

It's titled “Underwater Joe.”

I make myself throw up in the bathroom just to see if it will clear the feelings out of my chest.

It doesn't. I'm so not cut out for bulimia.

Secret:

I hate my best friend's boyfriend. Really, really, really hate.

—Roxie

I hide in the bathroom for, like, twenty minutes and miss part of Women's History because I cannot possibly face the day. I do a Downward Dog in the handicapped stall, but it does nothing to make me feel calmer. And since I also can't throw up my feelings, and I can't scream without attracting some serious attention, I reopen
The Secret Garden
and consider a few of my favorite notes before lingering on the last page and the website written there.

The link is circled in silver ink, which I hadn't noticed in the crappy lighting of our living room. Which I guess means my school's bathroom has better lighting than my family's living room, but that's a different issue. The silver ink gives it a magical quality. I lean against the locked stall door, take out my phone, and type in the address. I'm not sure exactly what I'm expecting. Maybe the note taker's blog or a
Secret Garden
fan page or something.

But the link doesn't take me straight to a website. A little gold box appears on the screen first.
Are you sure?
it says. I press yes, but I am suddenly not.

Can you keep a secret?
another gold box asks. I laugh. A tight laugh, the uncomfortable kind that comes from my throat and not my stomach. I look around the stall, like someone might be in there with me. I look in the book again, too, in case there's some clue that this website is sort of crazytown.

I press the silver-script yes. It reminds me of this princess-themed video game I used to play when I was little. Except when I press yes this third time, the actual website pops up. Dark with gold and silver writing.
Life by Committee
it reads on the top.

A silver spiral spins in the top right corner. Hypnotic.

I can't process what I'm looking at, but I also can't look away. Like a car crash or an eclipse or Joe's face. I could get lost in it, but it scares me.

There's a squeak as the bathroom door opens and a group of girls enter.

“She doesn't even know it's hot, which is what makes it so freaking hot,” one of them says. “You, like, can't even hate her, you know?”

“She's not, like, traditionally pretty. Not out-there pretty. She's, like, mysterious pretty. Which, I mean, is the
best kind of pretty, you know?” her nasal-voiced friend agrees.

I close the website. Put my phone away.

I'm dizzy from this day, but I refuse to hide in a stall and listen to everyone talk about how amazing Sasha Cotton is. I push the door open and try to see if they know who I am, if they know about me and Joe, if anything registers on their faces.

One of them clears her throat, and I try to interpret the tone behind the cough.

Definitely judgmental. If they don't know about me and Joe, they've at least heard from Jemma and Alison that I'm the wrong kind of girl.

Everyone's talking about Sasha's poem. The artsy kids are saying it's totally beautiful, and the young teachers are stopping her in the hallway to tell her she should be applying to colleges with great English programs. Everyone else is acting like she wrote soft-core porn, and even the jocks are looking at awkward wispy-haired Sasha in a whole new light.

I'm spending my free period drowning my sorrows in shitty on-campus coffee at a little table near the alcove where the hot athletes hang out. Joe isn't quite one of them, maybe because he's not very tall and fails to buy the Right Sweater every fall, but his big-toothed smile
and varsity-athlete status make him something of a sidekick. He can go to the parties, but they don't think to invite him. They talk to him when they are bored, but they wouldn't list him as a friend.

Athletes aren't supposed to have special status at Circle Community Day School, but these guys are gorgeous and their parents let them throw ragers after their games, so they end up popular despite the best efforts of the vegan potters who run our school to keep them down.

“Joe, my friend,” Luke, the tallest and hunkiest of the guys, calls out. Joe beams, knowing what's coming, because I'm sure he's been hearing it from every guy since assembly let out. “What's up with your girl? She a freak? Your girl like it a little crazy?” Luke talks like he's from Detroit or something, but his parents make homemade jam and run the tourism office, so they're real Vermonters.

“I don't know, man,” Joe says. He's grinning, though, a huge, shit-eating grin.

“Come on. She seems like a secret freak. She's one of those girls . . . kinda nuts, writes in a journal or some shit, reads a bunch of books with naked people on the cover. . . . Am I on the right track?”

My stomach turns. I blush, even though no one is looking at me or talking about me. I blush so hard, my own face is warm to the touch. I blush so hard, I'm pretty
sure it is distracting to everyone around me. A bright red glow must be flooding the hallways.

“She's a little like that, sure,” Joe says. He seriously cannot stop smiling. He's standing up straight, his feet wider than his shoulders, like he suddenly requires more room than your average person.

I am going to vomit. I am going to vomit right here, in front of everyone. Which will make my lack of Sasha-style sexiness even more obvious to the whole school and to Joe.