Sharks & Boys (3 page)

Sleep
did not come easy last night. The pain beneath my breastbone spread. I just lay there on my bed and physically ached. It’s like I’d been hit by a Mack truck hauling two tons of heartache. I want to call Wick. But I’m not an idiot. I know that such a move on my part would probably push him further away. It’s exactly like Pam Van Dorn used to say: “A relationship is like a rubber band.”

The first time I heard about the rubber-band principle was in eighth grade during lunch. Pam and I were sitting together on the front lawn, sharing her ham sandwich. She held a rubber band between her two index fingers.

“Tension is good. It’s what you want. But when I start doing this”—she moved one of her index fingers closer to the other one—“I lose the tension. And the relationship ends.”

I watched the rubber band slide down her finger and dangle in the air.

“So I’m a finger?” I asked her. “And the guy I like is the other finger?”

“Exactly,” she said. “And the relationship is the rubber band. And that’s why you should never chase a guy. When you move closer, you lose the tension, ultimately dooming your relationship to be nothing more than a flaccid loop of elastic.”

I stared at the dangling loop.

“Okay,” I said. “But using this model, you never get to touch your guy.” I held my fingers up and imagined a rubber band stretching between them and two people never meeting. Love seemed hopeless.

Pam took a big bite of her sandwich and shook her head. “The rubber band is a psychological metaphor. Physical stuff works differently. You’re totally allowed to touch your guy.”

“Cool,” I said.

Pam was always so smart about life. And she had an impressive vocabulary. Plus, her mom made pretty good ham sandwiches. We were close all through junior high. Then she started dating Billy Rome and I started dating Wick, and my life took off in a new direction.

In hindsight, our coupling seemed destined. The year before we dated, Wick and I had the same biology class. We knew each other, obviously, from twin studies. And we were both on the swim team. And we’d had that early iguana encounter. But even though fate had put us in the same classroom five days a week, and in the same swimming pool twice a week, nearly the whole year passed before something romantic happened.

Then, there was the field survey assignment during summer break. There were a dozen different things you could do. Test water at Lake Champlain. Sample soil in Waterbury near the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory.

Collect and dissect flowers near the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. Wick and I ended up in the same field survey. We both signed up to take granite samples from Rock of Ages in Barre. I don’t even care about granite. I don’t even know how it happened. One day, I drove to Barre to complete a boring assignment. The next thing I knew I spotted Wick’s head a few people in front of me in line at the granite quarry.

He was so mature. He saw me and made his way to me. And so we toured the whole quarry together. Laughing at each other’s mausoleum jokes. Offering each other breath mints and pieces of chewing gum. And then, afterward, instead of getting into our separate cars and driving back to Burlington, he suggested getting a panini at a restaurant in Montpelier. And he didn’t stop dialing up the romance there. When we got to Sarducci’s, instead of letting us take a table indoors, he requested a table on the patio that overlooked the Winooski River.

He was a prince. He didn’t sit there and talk about himself while he ate his sandwich. He asked me a lot of questions about my life. He wanted to hear my thoughts on everything from deforestation to the flat tax. We talked about Pablo Neruda’s poetry and Nadine Gordimer’s short stories. He asked me personal questions about what it felt like to be a fraternal twin. I mean, he was curious about how I perceived my individual identity. It reminded me of the phrase “fit like a hand in a glove.” During our panini moment, Wick was the hand and I was the glove.

And when I thought things couldn’t get any better, the most mind-blowing thing happened: everything got better. Wick started talking about how we seemed to be in each other’s orbits: biology, swim class, twin studies. And I loved that idea. I wanted to think of myself as a moon or maybe a planet being drawn to another moon. Like the path I was on with Wick was more significant than anything on earth; it was celestial.

And then, right when the check came and he paid for my panini, Wick said things that were so mature it made me question whether I was mature enough to be in Wick’s orbit. He said, “I’ve liked you for a while. We should do more stuff together.” And that’s when I realized that the granite quarry hadn’t been a coincidence. Because Wick said, “I asked Mr. Tober which field study you were doing.”

After that our orbits merged, and we began going out for sushi, and turnovers, and foreign films. Pam used to say that falling in love is all about meeting the right person in the right circumstance. God, she was smart. Maybe I should call her and solicit some advice. She and Billy are still going strong. She must know something about interpreting male behavior that I don’t. I try to stop myself from thinking about Wick and guys. I force myself to get out of bed. I must get up.

After contemplating getting dressed but deciding not to, I walk toward the kitchen. I should make some toast. Or pour a glass of orange juice. But I’m not hungry. I feel broken and empty in a way that doesn’t require food. When I reach the end of the hallway, it’s as if the kitchen phone wants to jump out of its cradle and leap into my hands. I pause at the doorjamb. If I called Wick right now, what would I say?

“Wick, I think the universe has a plan for us.”

“Wick, come over and I’ll let you eat marzipan off my body.”

“Wick, one day I hope to have your babies. And you’re tall and I’m short and that’s going to hurt.”

It’s such a good thing that Pam told me about the rubber-band principle. This breakup is hitting me like a wave. Two minutes ago I was reasonably okay. But now I’m not.
Do not call Wick. Take a deep breath. Seek out some male perspective.

“Enid, get out of my room.”

Landon can be so annoying. As my brother, as my twin, he should
want
to talk to me. Even if it is six o’clock in the morning.

“I didn’t sleep well,” I say.

“I was doing fine until a few minutes ago.”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Landon pulls his comforter over his head and rolls onto his stomach. He leaves a shoulder uncovered, and I can see underarm hair sprouting out of his pit.

“Have you talked to Wick? Did he tell you what happened?”

He doesn’t answer. I always assume that silence means yes.

“I don’t think it’s a permanent break. He said we’d talk next week. But I’m a little worried about this party.”

I sit at the foot of his bed.

“Don’t you have any advice?” I ask. “By the way, I’m crying.”

Landon rolls onto his back and pushes his comforter down so he can see my face.

“Don’t cry,” he says.

I wasn’t crying, but I frown dramatically so he thinks I’m more despondent than desperate. I want him to tell me everything he knows.

“So you think it’s not permanent either?” I ask.

He props himself up on his elbows. His hair is lying on top of his head in a flat brown mess. Somehow sleep has unwound his curls.

“I have no idea what’s going on with Wick.”

“So he hasn’t mentioned any other girls?”

Landon doesn’t say anything.

“Has he been talking about Simone? Because that would be so stupid. She lives hundreds of miles away. Maybe she’d be good for a fling or something. But with the price of gas these days, there’s no way that she’s girlfriend material, right?”

Landon falls back onto his bed.

“It’s too early for this,” he says.

“So you think he’ll have a fling?” I ask.

“You sound like Mom,” he says.

I bite my lip and suck on it. I’m pretty much a normal teenager, and I don’t want to sound like my mother. Especially since mine is in the throes of a deeply dysfunctional relationship that even counseling doesn’t seem capable of setting right.

“Who uses the word ‘fling’ anymore? You’re asking me if Wick would hook up with a hot girl who has long-standing interest in him? I guess it’s possible.”

To my surprise, now I really am crying.

“Don’t say that.” I let the tears run down my face.

“I’m just being honest,” he says.

“But if he did do that, if he hooks up with Simone, maybe he and I could still work things out, right?”

“Is that what you’d want?”

“I love him,” I say. “I really do.”

Landon sits up. He blinks at me. “Enid, you’re too young to love a guy.” He grabs a tissue from a box beside his bed and hands it to me. “It hurts now, but you’ll move through it. It’s part of life.”

“Or we could get back together,” I say.

“You’re thinking like a girl, Enid.”

“I am a girl.”

“Try to think like a guy.”

I shake my head. “But I’m not attracted to Simone.”

Landon scratches his head and yawns.

“Listen, the thing about guys is, well, we’re animals. You want us to be all kind and cuddly, like baby ducks or something. But we’re not. We’re visual beasts.”

“So you’re saying Simone looks better than I do?”

“You’re thinking like a girl again. I can safely speak for all straight guys when I say that when it comes to the female population, we really like to look, and we’re always tempted to pursue.”

“You’re not helping me at all,” I say.

Landon unleashes another yawn. I feel like I’m boring him. And that hurts too.

“Enid, you need to give him space. Dudes love space.”

“But if I give him too much space, he’ll leave my orbit.”

“Your orbit? You can’t control what happens. If Wick moves on, Wick moves on. And you’ll meet somebody else. You’re a great catch, Enid. You’re nice. You bake cakes. You’re smart. You swim.”

Landon has no clue what a brokenhearted girl wants to hear. I ignore much of what he just said and roll down onto my side. “But it hasn’t even been a whole day yet. Has he told you he’s moving on?”

He shakes his head no. “I’m just thinking like a guy.”

“He can’t.”

“He’s a guy. He’s going to move on.”

“God, Landon, you make it sound like you’re all apex predators. You’re wrong about a lot of things. First, I don’t bake cakes; I decorate them. Second, Wick is not moving on. Third, I saved a llama yesterday and that makes me more than a good catch; it makes me brave and totally interesting.”

He lies back down.

“Enid, I don’t want to argue with you. I accept point one. And I caution you against deluding yourself by believing point two. And I saw point three on the news last night. That’s too bad.”

“What do you mean that’s too bad? What do you have against llamas?”

“It died.”

“No, that’s not the story. It almost died and then I helped save it.”

“After that, it died. I saw it late last night on the news.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he says. He buries his head under his pillow. “Go online and see for yourself.”

I hurry to his computer desk and open up his laptop.

“Can’t you check it out in your room?” he asks.

I ignore him. I Google: llama rescue in Burlington, Vermont. The stories pop up. I click onto the first link. He wasn’t lying. The llama did die.

“Its name was Pilsner Urquell,” I say. “His owner said he was twenty-two and died of natural causes. Or possibly exhaustion.”

“Twenty-two is a lot of years for a llama.”

I didn’t save anything. I’m not a hero. Nothing about me is special. I’m a nice high school junior who decorates cakes and swims. This makes me freaking dull.

I close his laptop and get ready to leave. I’ve got an entire lame day ahead of me. I have marzipan to arrange and a wedding cake to assemble. I pat Landon’s computer. It didn’t mean to deliver soul-crushing news.

“Are you hitting my laptop?” Landon asks.

“No.”

And it’s at this moment that I see the symbol of my relationship with Wick lying on Landon’s desk like a sign. It’s a rubber band. I pick it up. I place my index fingers inside it and stretch it out. I make it taut. I hold it that way and stare into it like I’m looking at my own heart. I mimic Wick’s flight and pull one of my fingers away from the other. And then it happens. The band snaps. It sails away. My hand stings so badly that I rub it against my pajama bottoms. I reach to pick the elastic up. But I can’t find it. Oh my God. There’s a message in this. Too much tension can break the band, thus resulting in a broken piece of rubber that can totally zoom out of your life and disappear.

I’m about to get on my knees and try to recover my tragic symbol, when I notice something else. It’s a second sign, nestled in a wire basket sitting on top of Landon’s desk. It’s directions to the party. I touch the paper and trace my finger south along I-87. All of a sudden, this amazing energy crawls up my hand and arm. This must be how people who get struck by lightning feel. (Minus the singed hair, scorched clothing, and burned flesh.)