Take Me There

by Susane Colasanti

  I’m like, “What?”

  So Joni explains how Gloria’s been after Steve since he was still with Rhiannon. Ever since Joni’s party where she totally watched Steve string Gloria along like he might actually break up with Rhiannon (not that Joni could believe it, but she does have eyes and they don’t lie). And how Steve is out with Gloria right now, which is why they didn’t come to the party because Steve didn’t want to cause a scene because he knew Rhiannon was going to be here and he’s trying to keep it on the DL. Of course Gloria wanted to come and rub it in Rhiannon’s face, but Steve said no.

  I’m like, “How do you know all this?”

  So Joni gives me this complicated story about someone who heard from someone who heard from someone else, and it all sounds like a big fat rumor, obviously, but I just tell her that I have to go. Because there’s no way that load of bull is even remotely true. Which is why I’m not even going to dignify this freak show of a rumor by bothering Ree with it. She’s depressed enough already.

  All I want to do is be in my room listening to music and clearing everything out of my head until it’s all about him. He’s the only thing I want to think about. And he doesn’t even know it. But it’s hopeless, because Mom is in one of her chatty moods and I can’t get rid of her.

  When she gets all let’s sit around and share about our lives because we have such a good relationship about it, the whole thing comes off as kind of desperate. We’re supposed to talk for fifteen minutes every day as part of our family-therapy homework, and if we don’t our shrink can totally tell. There’s no way to avoid it. I guess it’s good for when I’m actually in the mood to talk about my problems, but that’s hardly ever. Especially now.

  So it’s partly what we have to do for therapy. But it’s also partly Mom being suspicious about where I just was and who was there and what I did. Not that she would actually come out and ask all this. She’s just checking in her own sneaky way that I’m not drunk or doing drugs or pregnant and it’s totally annoying that she doesn’t trust me, and I don’t want her in my room. I’ve told her a thousand times that I’m not going to mess up my life, but she doesn’t believe me. So every time I come home from a party, she attacks me to make sure I haven’t suddenly decided to throw my life away. It’s infuriating.

  She’s like, “How was the party?”

  And I’m all, “Fine.”

  And she goes, “Who was there?”

  So annoying.

  I’m like, “Mom. You know who was there. I told you who was going before I left.”

  Then she just stands in my doorway leaning against the wall while I try to find my iPod. This could take a while. It’s not that I’m morally opposed to cleaning my room or anything. I just don’t see the point. Like, you clean it but then it gets messed up again, so why bother with something that’s just going to disintegrate anyway?

  Mom offers up the brilliant idea to check the closet. So then I have to explain to her that my iPod wouldn’t be in the closet because I would never put it there.

  And she’s like, “How do you know?”

  Here’s the thing. Questions like that? Irritate me. Because she’s basically saying that I have no clue about where I put things. So I ignore her and keep searching around, and why does she have to keep standing there if she’s not even talking?

  According to my shrink, my need for lots of alone time has to do with being an only child. It’s supposed to be normal, but sometimes I feel like a freak when I’d rather be alone than hang out with my friends. I don’t know how people deal with brothers and sisters. It must be so weird to live with another person your age like that, someone sharing the bathroom and listening to their music all loud so you can’t hear yours and all of the drama that comes with having another kid in the house. I just can’t imagine having someone in your face all the time like that. I can never relax completely when I’m with someone else, even if it’s just one person hanging out in the same room. It’s like I can’t be myself unless I’m by myself.

  I know. I have issues.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sunday

  IT TOTALLY ROCKS when you wake up from a really intense dream and you still have that really intense dream feeling going on. Love that. And I’m way into the whole dream-interpretation thing. I used to have this dream notebook where I’d write down all the details of my dreams. I kept it right by my bed, and the first thing I’d do when I woke up was write down everything I could remember from my dreams that night.

  But then it was like the more I got into it, the more dreams I’d have. Which made everything really complicated, because then I’d have to record what happened for like three different parts of just one dream. Or I’d be writing for over an hour and show up late for first period and dreams were kind of taking over my life. I also noticed that once I started recording all my dream details, I started having dreams with way more details, and every night was like this crazy complex movie screening. So I had to stop it with the notebook.

  But whenever this happens with the really intense dream feeling, I try to remember everything about the dream for the whole rest of the day so it can be like it’s all still happening. And like it happened with him for real. Instead of only in my dreams.

  So I’m digging through my tees and figuring out what to wear today, and I can’t decide if I feel more like vintage rainbow or edgy statement. Which are on two extreme ends of the spectrum, so it should be easy to pick, but I’m all kerfuffled. That’s what really intense dreams do to you.

  I decide on edgy statement. So I’m going through the pile, and I pick out one that’s folded up all the way at the bottom. And it turns out to be the black one that has BAD KITTY in sparkly silver with the spastic cat that looks like he’s being electrocuted. It’s the shirt I was wearing when Danny started talking to me.

  He’d never said anything before that day. But it was like all of a sudden, something triggered him and I noticed him notice my shirt from the next table over in the caf. And when it was time to go, he came up to me and he was like, “Nice kitty.” And I was so caught off guard all I could say was, “Thanks.” Because the truth is, I had been crushing him for months. But that’s the thing about me. Everyone thinks I’m super confident and like I could go up to anyone and say anything I want, but actually no.

  So the next day I dressed even more extreme. I had my choker with the spikes and my skirt with the severe slit up the side with my ripped spiderweb fishnets and stiletto boots. And at lunch I had zero appetite—which is like a serious event in my world—and I could feel Danny watching me the whole time. And when it was time to go, Danny came up to me again the same way he did the day before and he said, “Nice boots.”

  I was stoked. But then later I got called into the assistant principal’s office and he chewed me out for violating the dress code. And I was like, “What dress code?” Because as if it’s even enforced. As if Leanne doesn’t come in every day with her shirt cut so low you can see every freaking thing and nobody says anything to her. But now all of a sudden I’m a problem? I mean, yeah okay, today I’m on the subversive side, but most days I tone it down for school so I can get away with floating just under the radar.

  It’s such a joke because when the AP tries to talk to some girl about the dress code, you can tell there’s this whole huge struggle going on for him over trying not to look at her breasts. I guess that’s why he avoids Leanne. So all that happens is you go in, he yells about how what you’re wearing is inappropriate and threatens to take away your activities or whatever, and then two days later he forgets all about it because he’s completely scattered and overworked so you can go back to wearing whatever.

  Like this one time? He conferenced or whatnot with Joni, and then she shows up two days later with her jeans cut so low that she had major butt cleavage hanging out all tacky. It was so extreme that boys kept getting up to sharpen their pencils just to get a look at it. And she totally got away with it.

  So when I’m expecting the meathead A
P to just yell at me for a while and make some of his infamous empty threats but instead he makes a big deal out of it and writes me up, I can’t believe it’s actually happening. He never does this. Maybe he got in trouble for not doing his job.

  Anyway, the next day I toned down my outfit just to be safe. Danny didn’t even wait until the end of lunch to come up to me this time. He just came over and pulled up a chair, and the girls I sit with at lunch immediately stopped talking and snuck looks at him.

  Danny was either oblivious to all the swooning or was excellent at acting oblivious. He was like, “How’s it going?”

  And I was like, “Oh. It’s definitely going.”

  Then Danny went, “I heard you got reamed yesterday.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “From Heather.”

  “How did she know?”

  And he said how she answers the phones when the AP’s secretary goes to lunch so she knew. And then she was talking about it eighth period.

  So I told him what happened and, being Danny, he got all agitated and lecturing how that’s selective discrimination and everyone knows the dress code is a joke.

  He was all, “Dude. They never even enforce the dress code!”

  “I know!” I yelled.

  “Do you even know what it says?”

  “No!”

  “Me neither! So how are we supposed to follow something that wasn’t even given to us?”

  “I think they assume we all have the same concept about what’s appropriate. Which obviously doesn’t work for me.”

  But then Danny was like, “It works for me.” And he leaned in a little. And the tone of everything changed.

  And the whole time we were talking, my friends kept sneaking looks. Danny has that effect on girls. He mesmerizes them with his opinions and theories and ideas. But it’s not just about how smart he is or how hot he looks when he’s all wound up about some issue. It’s like he’s a natural leader. He’s got this irresistible quality.

  The next day, Danny whisked right into the AP’s office and defended me. I didn’t even know what he was doing until he told me at lunch. He did all this research and found out that our school doesn’t even have a clearly defined dress code. There’s all this nebulous language in the Department of Ed guidebook, like how attire should be “appropriate for a classroom setting.” But it’s up to each individual school to create a specific dress code, like how skirts can’t be more than two inches above the knee or whatever, and our school never did. Or there was some committee a few years ago that was supposed to do it, but then there was this whole scandal and nothing was ever resolved. So the meathead AP was forced to remove the report he wrote from my file and that was it.

  Danny called me that night and asked me out.

  “Next guest step down!”

  It was a total miracle that I snagged a table at this Starbucks on a Sunday afternoon. But instead of getting homework done, I’m listening to the fight the couple at the next table is having and writing in my spy notebook and getting distracted by what everyone’s ordering. I have this theory that the drinks people order say a lot about their personality.

  Like this Mr. So Busy and Important Guy who’s ordering his freaky drink all, “Venti macchiato no whip half caf French Blend caramel swirl.”

  And the Starbucks dude goes, “Did you want foam or—?” but Mr. I Can’t Just Order a Coffee Because It’s Not Original Enough interrupts with, “I said, no whip.”

  I finish my apple fritter and pack up my stuff. Trying to concentrate here is useless. And on my way out, I hear Mr. Annoying Complicated Drink Guy bitching about how this wasn’t what he ordered. I’m not entirely convinced that he even knows what he ordered. Or that he’s ever going to get what he wants, with such complicated demands. He’s in some serious need of yoga. Or at least a hot-stone massage.

  Walking is the only thing that helps my brain calm down. And this is an awesome walking neighborhood. It’s so weird how in different parts of the city, some places have this incredible energy, like even the sunlight looks cleaner there. And it’s all about light and space and streets that seems to extend forever. And then you go to other places and it’s like some random sketchy neighborhood where no one wants to live.

  This lady with big sunglasses and even bigger hair bumps into me as she passes by and doesn’t even say she’s sorry. That’s the thing about saying “sorry” or “excuse me” in this city. No one ever does. Or when we do apologize, we don’t actually say it clearly. We just whisper the outline of excuse me or form the word sorry with our mouth, as if we expect people to lip-read. It’s one of my frequent observations that I’ve listed under Quirky New Yorker Behavior in my spy notebook.

  Not that I’m dissing on my people. New Yorkers are the most fabulous people anywhere. Especially if someone needs directions. I actually watched two people argue on a street corner for like five minutes over the best way to direct this tourist to Little Italy.

  These three college girls are walking ahead of me. Probably going back to their NYU dorm. I can’t wait until I live in the dorms, with my own life and own rules and own way of living, without anyone constantly bothering me to clean my room.

  The girls are so into their conversation that they don’t even realize I’m totally spying on them, walking way too close on the sidewalk.

  They’re like:

  “So then what’d you say?”

  “I was just like, ‘Why are you being like this?’”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he didn’t know.”

  “And then what’d you say?”

  I don’t want to stay too close to them, but I have to be close enough to listen. It’s walking a fine line, the whole invading-personal-space thing.

  “You can tell a lot from a person’s body language,” one of the girls is explaining. “Did he have his arms crossed?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then how was he standing?”

  “Can we go back to the last thing about him saying he’s not emotionally available?”

  They’re obviously trying to decode some boy behavior, like what he meant by what he said and whether he’s ever going to like her as much as she likes him. That’s what it’s like when you’re in it. When you’re in it so deep you can’t see anything else and all you want to do is analyze everything he said and did until you’re exhausted. I’d be doing the same thing now with Ree, if I could. But there’s no way I can tell her about this.

  Mom busts into my room like she was invited or something and goes, “I thought you were going to clean your room.”

  And I’m like, “That was just my closet. Remember?” And I’m digging through piles of dirty laundry because I can’t find my iPod recharger cord, and Mom is inspecting the laundry piles with this disapproving look.

  She’s like, “How hard is it to put your clothes in the hamper?”

  I can’t believe she’s in here again. I really can’t even. Was she not just in here last night, ragging on me for being a slob?

  But apparently that wasn’t a rhetorical question. So I’m like, “Um, well, let’s see. I have to pick them up, walk down the hall to the bathroom, lift up the lid to—” but she interrupts and goes, “These piles can’t continue.” As if they’re some mysterious random problem that keeps mutating and no one can control them. As if they’re bad behavior.

  So I inform her that piles are a method of categorizing. And she’s like, “Categorizing what? A tremendous mess?”

  Then I explain that just because my room doesn’t look like hers doesn’t mean I’m any less organized than she is, and didn’t she just lose her keys last week? But of course there’s nothing she can say to that because it’s true. She doesn’t even have anything on her walls except for this one artsy-looking black-and-white print of some courtyard in Paris. My walls are so covered with posters and photos and pictures I ripped out of magazines that you can barely see the dark red walls. And there’s like a mil
lion different flowers, because flowers are my thing. Flowers are everywhere: prints, pictures, my own artwork, postcards, even ones pressed in clear contact paper. And I have these sweet gel flowers on my window, and when sunshine filters through them it makes bright flower patterns on the walls. I can’t imagine having walls with nothing on them.

  I’m tossing aside stuffed animals and sneakers and CDs and I go, “There’s a method to my madness. Just because you don’t see what I’m doing here doesn’t mean it’s not organized.”

  And she’s all, “Oh, really?”

  And I can tell by her tone she’s just playing, but I’m not in the mood for games. So I’m like, “Yeah. Everything’s—I can find anything. I know where everything is.” Okay, maybe except my iPod recharger cord, but that’s just one thing. That happens to everybody.

  I guess Mom decides that we’ve connected enough for today, because she drifts off down the hall. My stress level begins its descent to normal.

  But it’s not like I want to be organized like Rhiannon or anything. Because this one time when she was packing for sleepaway camp? She made a list of everything she needed to bring and stuff she still had to get. But it wasn’t just your average list. That list was on the way other end of the spectrum. She developed this whole color-coded system with all these complex classifications and footnotes, and even when Rhiannon makes a simple list it turns into a PhD thesis. And then she actually said how there was a reference guide for the color-coding, and even though it might have been a joke I was still scared.

  My cell makes cricket-chirp sounds, and I go to my bag to take it out but it’s not there. But it sounds like it’s definitely in the area. So I start tearing through another laundry pile and papers and books, and I find it buried in my bag under my makeup case and this cardigan I have to keep in my bag because the computer lab at school is always freezing while the rest of the rooms are like a sauna. There’s a text message from Joni. It says:Does she know?