Tell Me Three Things (13 page)

So this is how we’re going to play it. Pretend this afternoon never happened. Maybe this is for the best. Maybe SN/Caleb has been right all along. Writing is better.

Real-life talking? Way overrated.

“
T
his is a long-ass poem,” Ethan says. “And it’s kind of annoying and complicated. I can’t keep all the voices straight.”

We’re back at Starbucks, what I now think of as
our
Starbucks, which I would never admit to Ethan in a million years. I’m sipping the latte he bought for me after asking if I wanted the same as last week. He even remembered that I like it extra hot. He was so casual about it—ordered, slipped a credit card out of his wallet—I didn’t even feel weird about not offering to pay. Next time I’ll say something like “I got this one” or “This one is on me.” Or maybe not.

“I agree. I mean, I write terrible poetry, but I don’t know. I can’t help but write in my own voice. I am who I am who I am. Whether I like it or not.”

“A rose is a rose is a rose. Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve read Gertrude Stein?” I ask. My mom was a huge Stein fan, so when she got sick, that’s what I read to her out loud. Mostly
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,
but some of her poetry too. “Sacred Emily”: a soothing nursery rhyme of a poem and, it turns out, where
rose is a rose is a rose
comes from. Not Shakespeare, which would have been my first guess.

Other things I learned then: Chemo blinds you. Steals your hair and blinds you. My mother couldn’t even read at the end.

Rose is a rose is a rose.

“Not much. Just
Toklas.
Talk about writing in someone else’s voice.” How does he find the time to read everything? Had I not insisted on working on this project, no doubt he
would
have delivered me an A. Come to think of it, I may end up actually bringing our grade down.

“My mom was an English professor at our local college, and she always used to quote Gertrude Stein. Called her G.S., like they were friends or something. Actually, for her fortieth birthday, my dad and I got her a vintage edition of
The World Is Round.
It’s this bizarre kids’ book. So random that I just thought of that.” I stare out the window to regain my equilibrium. I don’t talk about my mom to anyone, not even to Scarlett. Certainly not to my dad. Talking about her is like acknowledging that she’s gone, a jump into the unfathomable. Rendering true that which cannot be.

But we are talking about Gertrude Stein, which means we are already talking about my mom, and, I don’t know, the words just came out.

Ethan looks at me and waits a beat. He’s comfortable with silence, I realize. He’s comfortable with everything.

Ethan is Ethan is Ethan.

“I just want to say I’m sorry about your mom. People talk around here. Anyhow, it fucking blows,” he says. “I know that’s a crazy understatement, but it fucking sucks that people have to die and there’s nothing you can do about it. And so yeah, I just wanted to man up and say I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I say into my coffee cup, because I can’t look at him. I am not brave enough to lift my eyes. I don’t know what I’ll see there: pity or empathy. But I’m going to add “brave” to my inner Ethan tally, and “honest,” and “right,” because it does fucking blow and he is the first person to actually say that to me. Everyone back at FDR mumbled “sorrys,” probably because their parents told them they had to, and they were so obviously relieved when the words were out, the requisite box checked, that they could move on, even if I couldn’t. Not that I blame them. Death makes everything awkward.

“Yeah, we don’t have to talk about it, but I hate how when something like that happens, people just like to pretend it didn’t because it’s uncomfortable and scary and they don’t know what to say. Not knowing the right thing to do is not an excuse for not doing anything. So,” he says.

“So,” I say. I do it. I bring my eyes to his.
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

“And I’m not the only nerd who memorizes ‘The Waste Land.’ This first section is called ‘The Burial of the Dead,’ you know.”

“I know.” I smile, because I like Ethan and how he’s not afraid of anything, except maybe sleeping. And a smile is, in some ways, the same thing as saying thank you.

“Of course you know,” he says, smiling right back at me.

An hour later, we’re still sitting here. This week’s assignment is long done—one page on T. S. Eliot’s repeated references to dirt—so now we’re just hanging out, chatting. Maybe becoming actual friends, not just study partners.

“You never told me what you thought of Oville,” Ethan says after he has refilled his cup for the third time. He takes his coffee black. No fuss. Pure, unadulterated caffeine.

“Seriously? You guys were amazing.” If I were Gem or Crystal, I’d probably be smart and play it cool. Not fangirl all over him. But whatever. They indisputably rocked. “You’re all really talented.”

“I wish we could just play in my guesthouse, no shows at all, but apparently, it’s not up to me. That’s what we used to do before.” He says it like the “before” should be capitalized. Before and After.

“Before what?”

“Nothing. I mean before Liam joined. He’s all serious about launching a real music career, and I just want to play some music. Hang out.” Ethan stirs his coffee with a stick, a mindless habit since there’s nothing in there that needs mixing.

“Do you get stage fright?” I ask.

He pauses, as if I’m asking an important question that deserves a precise answer.

“Nah, not exactly. I just feel, I don’t know, more alone when everyone is staring up at me. It’s…isolating, I guess. And tiring.”

“I thought most performers feel the opposite. That it’s the only place they don’t feel alone,” I say. “Everyone wants to be the guy up onstage.”

Ethan shrugs.

“When I go to concerts, and it’s crowded and no one is bothering me, and it’s like, just me and the music…
that’s
when I don’t feel alone. I guess I’m not much of a people person,” he says.

“Really? Tell that to everyone at Wood Valley,” I say.

“Huh?”

Does he not notice that every girl in school lusts after him? That people actually
line up
to talk to him?

“Come on, it’s like you have a harem at lunchtime.” Again, I say too much. Seriously, I need lessons on how to flirt.

“Nah. That has nothing to do with me. It’s because of…Never mind. Long story.”

I want to say something like
I have time,
but I see how he is, that things are pretty straightforward: When he wants to talk, he talks. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. I don’t know him well enough yet to push.

“Who writes your lyrics?” What I really want to know is who wrote “The Girl No One Knows,” but I don’t want to admit to knowing Oville’s entire playlist. Dri sent me all of their songs, but I keep listening to that one on repeat, my tally now so high I’d die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw it. At the store, Liam only sang the chorus, which is simple and catchy and misleading because the rest of the song is something altogether different. Brooding, beautiful, desperate.

A poem, really. An elegy.

“Depends on the song. Me, usually. Some Liam. Oh, and this guy Caleb, who’s not actually in the band but hangs around and pitches in.” My head shoots up. Caleb? Did he write “The Girl No One Knows”? If so, then it all makes sense. SN is the type to write song lyrics, haunting, melancholy ones, but not the type to get up onstage and sing them out loud. In front of people.

“Caleb’s the tall guy, right?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Not really. Sort of. Met him the other day at work.”

“Yeah, he and Liam are tight.” I guess Ethan knows I work at Liam’s mom’s store. I must have told him last week when I mentioned knowing Liam. Or did Liam mention it? Oh shit. Have they talked about me? My palms start to sweat: I picture Ethan and Liam laughing about how I made it seem like Liam and I are close friends.

Is that why Gem called me a skank? Does everyone think I’m obsessed with Liam? Does Liam? Does Ethan? Does Caleb?

“You think I’ll ever figure this school out?” I ask Ethan. It’s frustrating how everyone knows each other. My closest friend here is SN—or should I just call him Caleb?—and our relationship consists solely of text messages. I need to hire Dri to give me a full background on everyone so I can stop stepping in it.

“Nope,” Ethan says. “I haven’t, and I’ve been here since kindergarten. But you know what I did figure out?”

“What?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t?”

“Nope. Not even a little bit.”

“Really?” I now stir my latte, which is finished, which means I’m stirring an empty cup. I need to keep my hands busy. The desire to touch Ethan’s hair, even his hands, has become borderline uncontrollable. I want to bite his earlobe, which looks like it once housed an ill-advised earring. I want to ask him how he can run so hot and so cold, how right now he can be so reassuring, almost a real friend, and at the party, I wasn’t worth enough of his time to stop and say more than that one syllable, that dismissive “hey.”

“Yup. Who cares about all these assholes? A few of them are great people, the vast majority are not, and at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself. If they don’t like you, screw ’em.”

“Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”

“Right. Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”

Fine, I’ll admit it: I’m sad when Ethan stops saying my name.

Home. Or, more accurately, the place I eat and sleep. Under the dome: chicken Marbella or marsala or something with an “M,” spears of asparagus, a dollop of wild rice.

I only saw Caleb once today. He was leaning against a locker in the hall at school, and when he saw me, he saluted me with his cell phone and then whispered something to the guy standing next to him, a senior who has the feltlike complexion of a Muppet. I assume his cell salute meant something like
Let’s keep talking with our phones, not in person,
since there’s been no attempt to make my suggestion of a date a reality. But thirty seconds later, my IM dinged.

I think it’s becoming clear Caleb and I will never actually chat over hot beverages, never say out loud that SN is Caleb and Caleb is SN, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe we’ve said too many scary things online already, and knowing what we’ve already shared, all that honesty, makes talking in person impossible.

Still, it’s sad, because I’m starting to appreciate his particular brand of hotness. Sitting across from him wouldn’t be distracting the way it is with Ethan. He’s a blanker, simpler, well-balanced canvas. Like Rachel’s white-on-white walls.

That night, I dream about Ethan and Caleb, both of them in my room and perched on my day bed, except they’ve switched T-shirts. Ethan wears gray, and Caleb wears Batman, and neither of them talks to me. Caleb plays with his phone, texting someone else—maybe me, but not the me in this room—and Ethan strums his guitar, lost in some complicated finger work, lost in the way that happens when he looks out the library window. I sit behind them, quiet, just watching and admiring the backs of their very different necks, trying not to be bothered by the fact that they don’t even realize I’m right here.

“
W
hat do you guys think about me getting a pink stripe? Like just slightly off center?” Dri asks, and runs her fingers through her unruly brown hair. We are sitting outside during our free period, our faces tilted up toward the sun like hungry cartoon flowers. I now have sunglasses—Dri and Agnes helped me pick out a knockoff pair—and I love them. They feel transformative, like I’m somehow a different person with large squares of plastic covering my face.

“Pink?” Agnes asks.

“Pink with an exclamation point instead of an ‘i,’ pink?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Dri says. “Either. Both.”

“No.” Agnes says it straight out, no attempt to preserve the possibility. Pure veto, which is exactly what Scarlett did when I suggested getting my inner ear flab pierced. Well, after she told me to Google what that part of the body is actually called, because she never wanted to hear the words “my inner ear flab” together in a sentence again. Can’t say I blamed her.

Turns out it’s called your tragus, which sounds vaguely dirty. No one should have their
tragus
pierced.

“How about all pink?” Dri asks. “Dye my whole head.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I like your hair the way it is.”

“Why? Why would you do that to yourself?” Agnes asks, though neither Dri nor I have the nerve to point out that Agnes’s red hair is as artificial as Dri’s would be if she were to dye hers pink. Then again, Agnes’s red somehow works in a way that I don’t think Dri’s pink would. Not a fine line between red and pink when we are talking hair.

“I just want a change,” she says.

“This is like the ukulele. You just want to be noticed,” Agnes says, blunt but not unkind. “I get it.”

“I feel…I don’t know, sort of invisible these days. Like, you know, except for you guys, no one would notice if I didn’t even go to this school,” Dri says, and leans back so that she’s lying down, staring up at the vast blue sky, so open there aren’t even clouds to read. I consider telling her that SN told me to befriend her, that he obviously has noticed how cool and funny she is, but for some reason, I’m embarrassed. I want her to think our friendship was totally organic.

“Honestly, I’d kill to be invisible,” I say. “Gem and Crystal won’t leave me alone.”

“Screw them,” Agnes says. “They just wish they could be as cool as you.”

“I am not cool. I am the opposite of cool,” I say.

“You are cool. I mean, now that I know you, I realize you’re actually something better than cool. But you somehow give off this badass, above-it-all vibe. And you’re hot,” Agnes says. “In Gem’s world, no one else is allowed to be hot.”

“Seriously? Who are you even talking about right now?” I ask.

“They’re just jealous because Liam likes you. Honestly? I’m jealous because Liam likes you,” Dri says.

“Liam doesn’t like me,” I say. “I just work at his mom’s store.”

“Whatever,” Dri says.

“No, seriously, we’re just coworkers. And for the record, I don’t like him. Not in that way, at least.” I hope Dri believes me. I need her to believe me.

“Then you’re crazy,” she says. “Because he’s smokin’.”

“Please do not get a pink stripe because of Liam Sandler,” Agnes says. “He’s not worth it.”

I spot Ethan crossing the lawn, coffee in hand, heading to the parking lot, even though it’s only noon. And just like every other time I’ve seen him like this, what I think of as
out in the wild,
I feel like I have managed to conjure him up, as if he has appeared only because I’m thinking about him. Which I was, since I pretty much think about him all the time. I can be talking pink hair or Liam Sandler, but what I’m really thinking is
Ethan is Ethan is Ethan.

I wonder where he’s going and whether he’ll be back in time for English. I hope so. We don’t talk to each other much in school, but I like knowing he’s behind me, that I could turn around and smile if I had the nerve. Not that I’ve ever actually had the nerve.

Crap. He catches me watching him. I hope I’m far enough away that he can’t see the goofy grin. He throws me a fast peace sign before beeping his way into his car.

“Now, Ethan Marks, on the other hand,” I say, finally confessing my crush to my friends. I’ve told Scarlett, of course, but she hasn’t gone to school with him since kindergarten, so it didn’t really count.

Should I have peace-signed Ethan back? No, I can’t pull off a peace sign. It’s a lot like “cool beans.”

“Really? You like Ethan! We used to be friends back in junior high,” Dri squeals, and sits up to grab my hands, all girlie enthusiasm. Or maybe she’s just relieved that I don’t want Liam. She cocks her head, reconsidering. “Though, let’s be honest: he’s not the most original choice. And—”

“And he’s kind of damaged,” Agnes says.

“And he’s never dated anyone at school. Never. Ever,” Dri says, and my heart sinks a little. Not that I thought I had a chance, but still. Now it feels like a technical impossibility.

“But he’s totally a panty dropper,” Agnes says. “No doubt about that.”

“Slut,” Gem fake-sneezes as I make my way into English. SN is right, I’m late, and now everyone is here, laptops already open, watching me get serenaded with profanity and germs as I walk to my seat.

“Whore,” she sneezes again, though not sure why she needs the elaborate cover-up. We can all hear her, even, I’m sure, Mrs. Pollack. “Fat ugly bitch.”

Just pretend you’re wearing Theo’s noise-canceling headphones. That you don’t see Crystal or Dri or even Theo watching. No, do not look up, do not see that Ethan is here too, back from wherever he went, his eyes following you, blazing with what looks like pity.

Nothing worse than pity.

Almost there. Just need to pass Gem. I can do this.

But I can’t. Because next thing I know, my nose hits the desk with a loud crack, and I’m splayed on the floor: a belly flop on the linoleum. My head now an inch from Ethan’s Converse.

“Are you okay?” he asks. I don’t answer, because I don’t know. I am on the ground, my face aches, so much worse than when Liam hit me with his guitar case, and the whole class is looking at me. Gem and Crystal are openly laughing—cackling like Disney witches—and I’m too afraid to stand up. I can’t tell if my nose is bleeding, if right now I am lying in a pool of my own blood at Ethan’s feet. I do know that my ass is spread across the floor like a smear of butter, at an angle no one should ever be exposed to, especially someone like Ethan.

Thank God it hurts. It helps keep me from feeling the humiliation.

Gem stuck out her foot. Of course she did. I’m so stupid, I deserve to be here smelling the floor.

Ethan squats down, holds out his hand to help me up. I take a deep breath. The quicker I get up, the quicker this will all be over. I ignore Ethan’s hand—I can think of nothing worse than wiping my blood on him, nothing worse than this being the very first time we touch—and so I steady myself with the reliable floor. Slowly make my way to sitting, then to standing, and like the
fatuglybitch
I am, I shift my bulk into my seat. Nothing graceful about it.

“Am I bleeding?” I whisper to Dri. She shakes her head, the shocked look on her face telling me that what just happened is as bad, as embarrassing as I imagine. No. Even worse.

“Do you need to go to the nurse?” Mrs. Pollack asks, almost in a whisper, as if she doesn’t want to attract any extra attention to me.

“No,” I say, even though I’d give anything for an ice pack and an Advil. I just can’t imagine standing up again, walking past Gem and then down the hall. Hearing the laughter at my back as soon as the door to the classroom closes.
No thank you.

“All right, then, back to
Crime and Punishment,
” Mrs. Pollack says, and redirects the class. I feel Ethan behind me, though, and I can’t turn, can’t even utter a pathetic thank you, because I’m scared of what my face looks like, and I’m scared I’m going to cry.

So I keep my head down. As if by avoiding eye contact I can render myself invisible.
Nothing to see here.
I think of SN wanting to be a chameleon, blending into the background. I somehow make it to the end of class, my eyes focused only on the desk in front of me. Someone has carved into the wood
Axel loves Fig Newtons.
Really, someone took the time to deface the desk to profess their love for a cookie. Unless, of course, there was a student here actually named Fig Newtons, which, considering the fact that we have three Hannibals, four Romeos, and two Apples, is totally possible. As soon as the bell rings, I grab my bag and run for the door. I don’t even wait for Dri.

“Jessie, a word, please,” Mrs. Pollack says just before I make my exit.

“Now?” I ask. I want to leave this room, get as far away from these people as I can, find someplace where I can be alone and cry, preferably with an ice pack on my nose. I try to focus on Axel and his love of Fig—I’ve written their whole tragic love story in my head—but instead, Gem’s words play on repeat:
Whore. Slut. Fat ugly bitch.
Like song lyrics earworming my brain. They’d sound good set to Auto-Tune:
Whore. Slut. Fat ugly bitch.
Perhaps I should offer them to Oville.

“Yes. If you don’t mind.” I do mind. I mind very much, but I can’t find the way to say so out loud. Mrs. Pollack motions toward a chair in the front of the room, and I sit and wait for the rest of the class to file out. Theo. Crystal. Gem. Dri. I notice Ethan hovering for a second—deciding whether to say something to me? to Mrs. Pollack?—but then he taps my chair with his book and leaves too, and now it’s just me and her concerned face and all I want in the world is to get through the next five minutes without crying.
Please, God,
I beg, though my relationship with God is something I have not yet sorted out,
please let me get out of here without embarrassing myself any more than I already have.

I can’t stare at Axel’s declaration of love here, so instead, I stare at a poster of Shakespeare, a man in a ruffled collar, with a quote underneath:
To be or not to be: that is the question.

No, that’s not really the question at all. Being seems to be the only thing not entirely up to us.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say, which I realize is not the point. She’s not mad at me—I’m the obvious victim here—but I’m choosing anger over the tears. Anger is slightly less humiliating. Anger is more consistent with the vibe Agnes claims I give off: badass and above it all.

Mrs. Pollack pulls her desk chair out and straddles it backward. She too wants to seem cool and casual. Like she’s a student, not a teacher.

“I just wanted to see how things were going. If there was anything you wanted to talk about,” she says.

“Nope.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. The tears are filling my eyes but have not yet betrayed me by falling. They wait on the verge. If I ever write a memoir, that’s what I’ll call it:
On the Verge.
“I tripped. It happens.”

“Switching schools can be tough.”

“I’m fine.”

“And I hate to say it, but girls in particular can be really cruel at your age.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not sure what to do here. I mean, I can talk to Principal Hochman. We have a zero-tolerance policy toward bullying.”

“I’m fine.”

“But I have a feeling that just might make things worse for you. Gem’s dad is a big donor here, and—”

“Seriously, I’m fine.” She looks at me expectantly. What does she want from me?

Whore. Slut. Fat ugly bitch.

“Did you do something to cause her to say those things? I’m just trying to understand,” she says, and leans on the pillow she has made with her arms. As if to say
We’re just hanging, no problem.

“Are you asking me if I did something to deserve Gem tripping me and calling me a whore, a slut, and a fat ugly bitch? Seriously? You are asking me that?” I forget that this woman is responsible for one-sixth of my GPA, that she can keep me from getting a college scholarship. I should play nice, but it turns out anger is not only preferable but easier. Comes naturally.

“I didn’t mean…I’m sorry, I’m just trying to understand—” She looks hurt now, like she’s the one who’s about to cry. Like she’s the one who just busted her face in front of the entire class.

“The answer is no. I have not touched a single guy in this school or actually pretty much ever, not that that would justify a fellow student calling me a whore or a slut. And as for the ‘fat ugly bitch’? I presume that’s subjective.” If I weren’t so upset, I’d take a moment to revel in the fact that I found the right words for once, that I said exactly what I wanted to say. But I don’t feel like reveling. I feel like running away. “Do you need my BMI? I’m sure that can be arranged.”