Snark and Stage Fright (10 page)

When we finally pulled up in front of my house, Michael carried my bag for me to the porch and set it down just as Tori burst through the front door so quickly she almost fell over him.

“Hi, Michael,” she said as she looked back and forth between him and me for signs of fracture, her usually sunny smile reading more like partly cloudy. Obviously she’d gotten my message last night and knew that an unexpected hurricane was not the cause of our shortened beach holiday.

“Hi, Tori,” he said; he took a step toward me but stopped. He wouldn’t be going in for a hug or a goodbye kiss ever again, I guessed. He just said, “I’ll call you, Georgia, okay?”

As he walked to his car, Tori put her arm around me and hustled me up to our room. On the stairs she said, “I told Mom and Dad that you were coming back early because Michael got sick and wanted to be home.” I nodded, impressed that while I hadn’t even thought of a good front myself, Tori had—all the more impressive because she’s never needed to be adept herself at covering humiliating behavior.

When she opened the door to our room, I could see right away that most of her things were in boxes already, packed up and waiting to be carted off with her to college next week. Seeing the boxes broke something inside of me.

“What happened, George?” she asked and I resumed the fit of tears I had managed to hold inside during the drive. I fell on my bed, where Tori joined me to rub my heaving shoulders and make soothing sounds until I could finally calm down enough to gulp in some oxygen.

I told her, everything, each detail more debasing than the last. From mocking his grandmother to falling in the rosebushes to hitting and being hit on by a national literary treasure to the omnipresence and poise of Catalina Osbourne in her white bikini—all the way to the previous night’s hideous, ill-timed nervous giggle of doom. She tried to stifle a gasp at this last bit of news, but I heard her and started sobbing again.

“I know!” I wailed, then quieted myself so as not to alert the rest of my family. “I
know
! It’s bad, really bad … God, I can’t believe I am so stupid!”

“Michael loves you,” she told me as she pulled me into a hug. “That hasn’t changed overnight.”

“Laughing at a guy’s penis is pretty unforgivable. Unforgivably stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, George,” she said as she stilled my fist from pounding my knee again. “You’re just you.”

“That’s the problem!”

We heard tapping at the door that grew insistent until one of my younger sisters, Leigh, came in and hovered a bit. Tori released me from her arms so Leigh could sweep in and give me a tight hug. I must’ve been a truly pathetic case if I warranted this much sisterly sympathy. Especially from Leigh, who had taken an abstinence pledge and would no doubt feel I had giggled myself out of an eternity in the hot spot below.

“Tori said you were coming home early … ” she began, looking at Tori for a clue as to what had driven me back to Longbourne in disgrace. As Leigh wiped a loose strand of light brown hair from her face, I could see the glint of her purity ring in the sunlight.

“Maybe I should get one of those,” I said, even as I knew that at least Leigh had spiritual and ethical reasons for saving herself while I was just a neurotic and maladjusted wingnut who laughed at inopportune times. Her eyes turned round with horror, imagining I had been the victim of Michael’s ungovernable male hormones, so I shook my head to set her straight as I snorted up a couple ounces of snot. She sighed and put a hand on my shoulder.

“A relationship is better without those complications … ” she began but I just shook my head again and she cut the well-meaning sermon. She was trying, I knew, but I also knew she would never understand what I’d done. How could she when I couldn’t understand myself?

Before I could attempt to explain to her what had happened—or even decide if I wanted to—Leigh’s very un-identical twin, Cassie, appeared in the doorway in a
Western Mass Cheer Camp!
T-shirt and a pair of very cut-off, very ripped Abercrombie denim shorts that seemed to be held together by sheer force of will. It’s hard to believe my twin sisters came from the same ovum, let alone the same planet.

Cassie asked Tori, “Did Michael dump her?” like I wasn’t even there.

“No!” Tori barked at her. “No. They just had a … misunderstanding.” She looked at me as my head bent under the weight of Leigh’s consolation; she was now awkwardly petting me like a little kid who really wants to get over her fear of dogs but still has a long way to go before she’s comfortable. “Which happens, right?” Tori prompted her.

“Oh. Yeah, of course.” Cassie leaned against the doorjamb in a rare moment of contemplation before offering, “Well, if you’re interested, George, Pete’s friend Tony thinks you’re sort of hot. You could go out with us tonight if you want?”

I didn’t even ask who Pete was, let alone Tony. I figured they were both on some athletic team; it was merely a question of which one and whether they played for Longbourne or if Cassie had at last run through all the local jocks and moved on to regional ones. Still, I sensed she was genuinely trying to be nice to me and I was grateful, even as I realized, again, how truly pathetic I must appear to elicit such a generous offer from Cass.

I forced a smile of sorts and told her, “Thanks, but no … I think Michael and I just need some time. At least, I hope so.”

Cassie shrugged and slid out of the doorway; Leigh lingered for a moment, but we both realized that we didn’t really know what to say to each other, so I assured her, “Thanks, Leigh. You’re being really sweet, as usual. But I just need to get on with it. Life goes on, right?”

She nodded and told me she was meeting Alistair this afternoon, but she would be back if I wanted to talk. I smiled ruefully as she left, knowing that a few months ago I would have dismissed her offer as a chance to proselytize, to grab me as another recruit for some Virgins for Jesus campaign or other church-related horror. Now I knew that she, like most everyone else, was just trying their best; getting to know Michael over the course of last year is what had helped me see this, and recognizing that felt like a knife stabbing me in the chest from the inside.

But I turned to Tori and thanked her for covering for me with Mom and Dad about why I was home early. “There’s no way I can tell either of them about this. Dad would be after Michael with a shotgun and Mom … ” I sighed. “Mom would probably leave copies of
Cosmo
magazine on my bed with pages of sex tips flagged by Post-its.”

Tori laughed and put her arm around me.

“It’s going to be okay, George,” she promised. “You’ll see.”

I nodded like I agreed, but I knew she had no idea what she was talking about. She had met the love of her life, Trey Billingsley III, early last year, and they have been a happy couple ever since. I’m sure the first time they had sex, Trey had covered the bed with rose petals, and seraphim had played harps overhead and all the angels sang in exultation. Neither of them had insulted the other, that’s for sure. Soon they were going off to nearby colleges, separate but committed to being together because they so obviously belonged that way. And they deserved to be happy.

Still, I asked her, “Do you worry what will happen when you’re at Williams and Trey’s at Amherst?”

Tori looked at me for a second as if I had asked her if she thought it was a good idea to breathe in oxygen every few seconds. “Of course! We’re going to be apart and he’s going to meet all new people … ”

“Well, so are you,” I pointed out.

She shook her head slightly and stretched out on her bed with her back against the fluffy ruffled pillows, frowning. Seeing Tori frown is like seeing the Tooth Fairy slap a kid for having a cavity. It made me feel even worse—I wouldn’t have believed that to be possible—so I hurried to say, “He’s not going to find anybody better than you, Tor. And one of the best things about Trey is he knows that.”

She smiled but reasoned, “That’s not a guarantee, though, is it?”

I looked at her carefully. I had never seen her this uncertain about anything before, except maybe for the brief period last year during Christmas break when Trey had gone away and forgotten to text or call her. I decided not to point out that while away at college she might find someone she liked even more than Trey because I was positive that every heterosexual guy at Williams would love Tori. Instead, I scooched myself next to her and rested my head on a shared pillow. I couldn’t reassure her any more than she could reassure me. Because she was right.

There aren’t any guarantees in life.

Especially when you have a brain like mine.

***

Two days later, I hesitated at the door to Dr. Endicott’s office before making myself turn the knob and go in to work. I was pretty sure that Michael hadn’t told his parents what had happened between us. It had been, after all, a pretty mortifying experience for him, too, one he would not want to share even with the kind of parents you can actually talk to. But on my first day back at work, I learned that he came up with an excuse, too, because when Dr. Endicott came out of his private office to the reception area and saw me bent over a stack of files, he asked me, “Are you feeling better, Georgia? Michael said you two came home early because you didn’t feel well and wanted to be at home.” I saw genuine concern in his eyes, so like Michael’s, and I thought for a second about throwing my arms around him and telling him everything. Instead, I assured him, “Much better, thank you. Too much sun, I think.”

“Well, if you need me to take a look at anything, let me know. There have to be some perks to working for a doctor.” He laughed, winked, and went into an examining room to meet a patient.

“You okay?” Shondra asked. Shondra was probably my best friend in Longbourne. We had started hanging out together as we both felt like misfits and were new transfers to Longbourne High. She can always be counted on to know what to do. “Oh, yeah. I wasn’t sick, really,” I admitted. “Michael and I came home early because we had … a misunderstanding, I guess.”

Shondra set her stack of files on the front desk and shook her head in confusion so hard her braids bounced in a halo around her head.

“Haven’t you guys had about five
million
misunderstandings by now? You two are either going to be with one another through the next twelve lifetimes or one of you will murder the other in their sleep.”

When she could see that I wasn’t laughing at this, she squinted at me but didn’t get to say anything because the phone rang then and one of us had to answer it. Almost immediately, a frantic mom came in with a little boy who had cut his hand and she didn’t want to take him to the ER because she only wanted to see Dr. Endicott. Her English was really shaky and she was near hysterical with worry so the poor kid had to both hold the towel on his gushing wound and translate for her until I could pull Donna, the nurse, out of the exam room to stanch the bleeding. As Shondra tried to soothe the other patients in the waiting room—one of the kids’ parents did not seem to think that a mortal wound was any reason to cut in on someone else’s scheduled appointment—I tried to entertain his little sisters with drawings on the back of billing sheets while they yelled out animals for me to make. I sat in the waiting room with them while Dr. Endicott took the boy into the examining room. At least all the drama made the time go by quickly. For the first time in two days, I didn’t have time to think about what Michael was thinking about.

As we were closing up the office at the end of the day, Shondra said to me, “Los and I are going to a movie tonight. You and Michael should come with us.”

I paused because I knew what she was up to—setting up an ersatz double date with her and her boyfriend—because between patients I had given her the abridged version of my misdeeds on the Cape. As I decided what to say, I intently watched the computer shut itself down as if it needed my encouragement to do so. Finally, I arrived at, “Um … I guess we could do that?”

She frowned at me, looking for all the world like a grandmother who has had just about enough of your nonsense. “So call him,” she ordered.

“Okay … ”

She handed me my cell phone so I meekly tapped Michael’s name in Contacts and prayed that I got his voicemail since he was at work at the YMCA in Netherfield. I didn’t, and that confounded me so much I said, “Oh, it’s you!”

“Who were you expecting?” he asked, which flustered me enough to wish I were on the office phone so I could slam the receiver down and run.

I fumbled, “Oh, yeah, um, I’m just surprised that you’d keep your phone at the lifeguard tower, I guess.”

“When there’s a drowning I just put a caller on hold.”

“Oh.” Clearly I was poised to win him back with my dazzling conversational skills. He didn’t sound very happy to hear from me and Shondra must have sensed this from the look in my eyes because she backed a few feet away to a discrete distance, staying just close enough for moral support.

“So, um, Shondra and Los are going to a movie tonight and invited us along. Would you … do you want to do that, maybe?”

He paused, just long enough for my heart to leap like a frog into my throat. Then he asked, “What time?”

I looked at Shondra, said, “I don’t know, around eight?” and she nodded as she raised both palms flat in the air in a
whoop! whoop!
of victory.

“I guess I could do that,” Michael drawled. “Text me the time and the theater and I’ll meet you guys there, okay?”

Okay
, I thought as I clicked “end” on the call. He’ll meet us there. Which means he was willing to go with me, but not
with
me. I guessed that was something.

I forwarded the deets to him when Shondra texted them to me later, and at seven forty-five I found him standing in front of the movie theater. He seemed pretty casual about seeing me; he gave me a wave and then walked into the theater behind me. We sat next to each other during the movie but we didn’t hold hands, and when his knee brushed against mine, he didn’t keep it there or brush it against me again like he used to. But afterward, he didn’t make an excuse to leave and we all went to Los’ favorite pizza place on the edge of Netherfield and Michael didn’t comment when I picked the cheese off my slice, either because he was still being tolerant of my vegan eccentricities or because he just didn’t care what I did any more. Shondra and I told them about the emergency kid today and how brave he was and she said that I was so “awesome” with the boy’s little sisters and described the animals I drew with them. If I’m ever on trial and need a character witness, I’m calling Shondra. Los seemed impressed with her pimping my mad people and drawing skills.