Tell Me Three Things (9 page)

I pause. Yesterday, on my way to work, it rained for no more than thirty seconds—the first rain I’ve experienced since moving here—and then the clouds shifted, and yes, SN is right. There was part of a rainbow, arched across half of the sky, so rainbowlike in its rainbowness it made me feel almost silly, like I lived in a cartoon. And I’m embarrassed to admit it, but for a second, I thought it was a message from my mom, or that somehow it
was
her, in a way that I could not and still cannot explain. I took a picture but didn’t bother to Instagram it. I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to be all free-spiritish, which I am not. In any way. Should I send it to SN?

I find the picture on my phone. No need to even use a filter, because unlike absolutely everything else, it is perfect as is. Hit send.

You have an IM from Liam Sandler.

You have an IM from Ethan Marks.

An IM from Ethan. Eight p.m. on a Thursday night. Which meant he was thinking about me, because you can’t message someone without thinking about them first, right? Or maybe he was thinking about “The Waste Land,” which isn’t exactly the same as thinking about me, but close enough. The poem and I are now aligned. I’ll take it. This is the sort of ridiculous analysis you engage in when you have a ridiculous crush.

Which I do not.

Although I know Ethan heard Gem be rude to me that first time—he was, of course, the whole reason for the
what are you looking at?
fiasco that somehow set her off hating my guts—I didn’t realize he hears all the crap she mutters under her breath in English class. Great. It’s one thing to be mocked daily; it’s a whole other thing when cute guys bear witness to it.

Today, the target was the stickers that decorate the back of my laptop. Scarlett made them for me for my birthday last year, and they are awesome. All the tattoos I would get if I were the sort of person who had the nerve to get tattoos, which I am decidedly not. Instead, I’m the kind of person who has spent hours debating said theoretical tattoos, despite my crippling fears of both needles and long-term commitment. Hence painless, temporary stickers: two Korean characters that Scarlett swears say “Best Friend”; the line
to thine own self be true,
written in Gothic script; and lastly, a snake, which was not on my list but which Scarlett added because she thought I should be more badass, even if only theoretically. Gem’s brilliant take: “I bet that says ‘loser’ in Japanese.”

Dri liked a photo of you and her on Instagram.

I click. Dri and I at the lunch table, Agnes just out of the frame. Was she cropped out? I can’t remember. Maybe. Possibly. I think so. That shouldn’t make me happy, but it does.

I’ll admit it. I take a screen shot. Four conversations at once. Four different people who have something to say to me. True, one was about work, one was about a school assignment, one is with Scarlett, who doesn’t count, and one is with someone I don’t even know, but still, I’m going to count them all. Proof that maybe I’m starting to have something resembling a life again.

“
I
t’s literally just sex. I’m not sure why everyone makes such a big deal about it,” Agnes says, and rolls onto her back on Dri’s bed so her head is hanging off the edge and her bangs fall backward. She has a large forehead. The bangs, it turns out, are less about being hipster-cute and more tactical. It’s Friday night, and instead of staying home with Harry Potter, I am here eating potato chips from a jumbo-sized bag, flipping through the Wood Valley yearbook, and chatting with Dri and Agnes, as if this is what I always do on weekends. And it doesn’t feel too weird. When I start to get a little nervous that Agnes doesn’t want me here, I remember that Dri invited me, even added a “come on, loser” when I said I might need to stay home and study. I chose to interpret her use of “loser” as affectionate.

“Since when are you an expert?” Dri asks, and throws a pillow at Agnes. “I don’t care what you say. Technically, you’re still a virgin.”

“I am not! I totally technically lost my v-card,” Agnes says with faux indignation. They sound like an old married couple who has had this particular fight before and neither cares how it turns out. The fun is in the fighting.

“Technically? What does that even mean?” I ask, and look at Agnes. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those weirdos who, you know, count, um, oral.”

“Course not. There was just a minor penetration issue,” Agnes says, and giggles. “But it counts. It definitely counts.”

I start laughing too, though I don’t really get it.

“What the what?”

“Agnes was half penetrated. She got slipped a half peen.”

“Half peen, that’s hilarious,” Agnes says, and soon we’re all laughing so hard we have tears falling down our cheeks.

“Literally, I have no idea what that means. You have to tell me the whole story,” I say.

“Okay, here’s what went down,” Agnes says.

“No pun intended,” I say.

“Touché. So, last summer at drama camp, and yes, I know, cliché, blah, blah, but at least it wasn’t prom. Anyhow, this guy Stills and I are hooking up outside my bunk, and we’re on the ground, and I think,
Okay, let’s do this.
I was kind of bored of the whole virginity thing, and so we get a condom, because safety first, right, and start to you know, have sex, with, you know, some penetration, and then all of a sudden he totally freaks out. Apparently, he’s all into, and I quote, his ‘bro J.C.’ and wants to wait till marriage.”

“No way,” I say. “He actually said ‘my bro J.C.’?”

“Yup. Humiliating on so many levels. So that’s how I lost my virginity. It counts, right?” Agnes asks me, and I decide that maybe I’ve been too quick to judge her. She’s funny and super honest and willing to laugh at herself. I get now why she and Dri are best friends.

“I vote yes,” I say, because it’s a hell of a lot closer than I’ve ever come to having a penis inserted into me.

“But Dri’s right too. I totally got half peened. How about you?” Agnes asks so casually it’s like she’s asking what my favorite subject is.

“Not yet. I mean, I’m not waiting till marriage or anything like that, but, yeah, no real opportunity has presented itself,” I say, which is the truth. What I don’t say: that I wouldn’t mind if it happened with someone I liked and found attractive and who liked me back. I assume I won’t lose my virginity until college, because that’s when it seems to happen for girls like me.

“Me neither,” Dri says. “And to go back to my original point, I’m not saying it’s some huge deal or anything, but, come on, it’s not nothing.”

Agnes says, “So my sister goes to UCLA, and she’s like this huge hobag there, right? And she says that sleeping with all these randos is her way of owning her sexuality.” Agnes now sits up and faces both Dri and me, her bangs restored. “She even has a file on Evernote where she keeps track of everyone she’s slept with.”

“You kind of have to admire her commitment,” Dri says. “Banging for feminism.”

We laugh again, and I think about Scar and how she’d feel right at home here. I continue to flip through the yearbook, looking but not looking for SN.

“Hey, can I ask you guys a question?” I ask.

“Course,” Dri and Agnes say at the exact same time. Scarlett and I used to do that too. We called them our mind meld moments.

“Do you know anyone in our class who had a sister who died?” I know I shouldn’t try to figure out who SN is, that finding out might just ruin the best thing to happen to me in forever, but I can’t help myself. I have this one nugget of information, and I want to run with it.

“Don’t think so. Why?” Dri asks.

“Well, there’s this guy…,” I say, and wonder how to tell this story without making it all sound weird. SN and me, our constant texting despite his anonymity. How I feel like he’s really starting to know me, to
see
me, even though we’ve never even met.

“So many great stories begin ‘There’s this guy.’ ” Agnes giggles.

“Shut up,” Dri says. “Let the girl talk.”

And so I do. It feels like I’m in a safe room, and not despite Agnes’s teasing, but maybe because of it. These are people who, if they aren’t already, are well on their way to becoming my real friends. I don’t mention the specifics: our new three things game or how he told me to befriend Dri in the first place. The former, at least, belongs only to us. But I confess that I like him, whatever that means when you’ve only talked online.

“You totally want him to half peen you,” Agnes says.

“A girl can dream,” I say.

Later, when I get back to Rachel’s house, I find Theo lingering outside our parents’ bedroom, obviously eavesdropping.

“You are not listening to them, you know, doing the nasty. Please, please, please tell me that’s not what’s happening here,” I demand.

“Ewww. Gross, no. And shush. They’re fighting,” he says, and pulls me next to him, right near the door, so I can hear them too. Turns out that’s unnecessary, because soon they’re shouting so loud I’m sure the neighbors have turned off whatever reality show competition they are watching to tune in to this instead. “I think they might be breaking up, and then this long national nightmare can come to an end.”

“ ‘Long national nightmare’? Seriously?” I ask.

“What the hell, Rachel? It’s just a fucking dinner,” my dad says, and that’s when I know it’s serious. My dad rarely curses, opts instead for the faux cursing favored only by ten-year-old girls and Southern women and Dri: shut the front door, holy sugar, eff off. “I need to study.”

“It’s an important work dinner, and it’s not unreasonable of me to want my husband there. We’re married, remember? This is important to me,” Rachel says, and I wish I could see through the door. Are they standing or sitting? Is Rachel the type to throw things, to smash the thousand-dollar accessories that litter the house? But who needs a six-foot-tall white porcelain giraffe anyhow? “Forget it. Maybe it’s better if you don’t come.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It means nothing.” Oh, the passive-aggressive type. Says things without saying them. Agnes would hate her. “You and I both know this is not about you needing to study. You already told me you can take that test in your sleep.”

“Fine. I’ll admit it. I wanted one night to myself. One night when I did not have to be judged by all of your friends. Do you think I don’t see how they look at me? How you look at me when they’re around? I even let you take me shopping so I can dress the part, but come on! Enough,” my dad says, and now my cheeks flame. No doubt, I feel out of my element at Wood Valley, but it never occurred to me that my dad would have trouble adjusting to life in LA too, that all this fitting-in stuff doesn’t end in high school.

“No one is judging you,” Rachel says, and her voice turns coaxing, soothing. “They all like you.”

“So sue me that I don’t want to watch some indie movie about a Bengali leper who plays the harp with his toes. And you have some nerve correcting my drink order the other night, like I’m a child. I wanted a beer with my steak. Not an overpriced glass of cabernet. Sorry if that offends your high-class sensibilities. That sort of stuff doesn’t matter to me.”

“I was just trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself,” Rachel says, and her voice starts to quaver. Tears are imminent. I don’t feel sorry for her. “At a place like that, you don’t order beer. You just don’t. I was just trying to signal to you—”

“I don’t need signals. I’m a grown man, and just because I prefer burgers and beer to organic freshwater fancy-ass fish doesn’t make me a barbarian. You knew who you were marrying. I’ve never pretended to be anyone else. Anyhow, I thought it was cool to be different out here. Isn’t that why you bought me those ridiculous sneakers? It’s like you’re training a pet.”

“It’s one thing to have simple tastes. It’s another to be downright antiintellectual. Would it hurt you to read a book once in a while?” Rachel asks. Turns out I was wrong. She’s not going to cry. She’s doubling down. She’s rearing back.

“Seriously? You’re insulting my intelligence now? I’ve never seen
you
read a book. All that’s on your night table is
Vogue.
Actually, the only person who reads around here is Jessie. She’s the only sane person in this house.”

“Jessie’s the only sane person in this house? Wake up, Bill! She has no friends. None. I was thrilled to send her to Wood Valley, but aren’t you worried about her? Teenagers are supposed to go out and have fun,” Rachel says.

Oh, so I’ll be the one who will end up in tears. Of course, that’s the way it goes these days. I want to yell back, right through the door.
I’ve made friends! I’m doing my best. I don’t need help.
It’s not my fault my mother died, that we moved here. I’ve had to start all over from scratch in every way that matters. My dad chose her, and even more inexplicable, she chose my dad, and I didn’t choose either one of them. Sure, my dad’s a nobody pharmacist from Chicago, but he’s smart, damn it. Brilliant, even. So what if he loves WWF and action movies? My mom loved poetry, and even though my dad never did, they made it work. She let him be himself.

My life is a shit sandwich, with a side of jizz veggie burger. I don’t have the strength. My eyes are blurry with tears, and I slide down the wall to the floor. Theo looks at me.

“She talks crap when she’s mad. Ignore her,” Theo whispers. “She just likes to get her way.”

“You’re one to talk about parenting.” My dad’s voice. “My kid is amazing, so don’t you dare. Have you looked at your kid lately? The way Theo gallivants all…” My dad stops, thank God.
Oh, Dad, please don’t say it.

“All what?” Rachel asks. “My son is gay. So the hell what?”

Rachel is goading him now. It sounds like she wants to fight. For a moment, I think it would be preferable to listen to them have sex. This is somehow even more intimate, more raw. Even worse than witnessing her midnight tears. I don’t want to be so close to these grown-up things. It’s all so screwed up.

Suddenly, I wonder if this is what happens when people meet on the Internet. A connection without context. A good first impression so much easier to make because it can be manipulated. But they met in an online
bereavement
group, not a place normal people click for a hookup. It’s hard picturing someone like Rachel turning to the Internet to help with her grief. She’s always so put-together. The opposite of needy.

As much as I’m not a huge fan, I’m starting to see why my dad was attracted to her. Despite being dealt the bad hand of widowhood, Rachel’s getting an A-plus at life. She’s successful and reasonably attractive and rich. But why did she marry my dad? He’s not ugly, as far as middle-aged men go, I guess, and he’s kind—my mom used to say she was the luckiest woman in the world to have found him and to have built her life on such a stable foundation—but I’d imagine there are a million men like him in LA who come with fewer complications and more of their own cash. Why did she have to pick
my
dad?

When my parents used to fight, I would slip away to my room and put on headphones. I didn’t listen, especially because I knew the fight would last for days—two or three at least—when both of them would use me to talk to each other, one of the downsides of being an only child:
Jessie, tell your father he needs to pick you up from school tomorrow; Jessie, tell your mother that we are out of milk.
They didn’t fight often, but when they did, it was explosive and unpleasant.

Everything passes, Jessie. Remember that. What feels huge today will feel small tomorrow,
she once said, right after a big fight with my dad. I don’t remember what they were arguing about—maybe money—but I do remember that it ended out of nowhere, four whole days after it started, when both of them just looked at each other and started cracking up. I think about that often—not only how that fight broke, but what she said. Because I’m pretty sure she was wrong. Not everything passes.

“Let me just make something clear here.” My dad’s voice gets low and growly. He’s calm, almost too calm, which is what he does when he’s really angry. Runs cold. “I’m not some ignorant homophobic hick, so stop talking to me that way.”

“Bill!”

“Forget it. I’m going for a walk. I need air and to get far away from you,” my dad says, so Theo and I scramble quickly down the hall. Surely my dad knows they’ve been yelling, but better for him not to know about our front-row seats.

“Good. Go!” Rachel screams. “And don’t come back!”

I’m in Theo’s room now. I’ve only been in here once, when I told him about my new job, so I take advantage of the opportunity to look around. He doesn’t have anything on his walls, not a single framed picture on his desk. Not much to see. Apparently, he’s a minimalist, like his mother.

“You think they’re going to get a divorce?” Theo asks, and it surprises me that my heart sinks at the thought. Not because I particularly like living here, but because we have nothing to go back to. Our house is gone. Our Chicago lives. And if we were to stay in LA and move to some sad little apartment, my dad couldn’t afford to keep sending me to Wood Valley. I’d have to start again somewhere else. I’d have to say goodbye to my silly crush on Ethan, to my friendship with Dri and Agnes, to my whatever with SN. When Rachel told my dad to not come back, did she expect me to leave too? Are we kicked out?