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For Jason, the best partner and co-parent I could ask for.
One
“I think I finally have my audition piece,” I say to my best friend Evita. I plop into the chair next to her and start unpacking my lunch.
“Huh?” she asks, pulling out ear buds that I hadn’t noticed under her mane of curls.
“You’re not supposed to listen to anything too loudly,” I remind her. It’s a rule she came up with anyway. She needs to preserve her perfect hearing for when she’s a famous record producer/singer/DJ. “But if you are going to listen to something…” I hold up my phone.
“What’s that?” Theo asks, sitting opposite us.
“Possibly my audition piece,” I tell him.
Evita sits up a little straighter and puts her game face on. “Hand it over.”
“Why does she get to hear it first?” Theo asks.
“Get over here,” Evita tells him, holding out one of her ear buds.
“It’s obviously just a MIDI file, but, you know, I could do it on viola. With maybe piano, but it’s kind of…” I gnaw on the side of my thumb.
Theo shoves between us, balancing precariously across our two chairs. I hand Evita the phone. She hits play. The piece is two and a half minutes.
A long two and a half minutes.
Beyond an occasional bob of her head, Evita makes no show of emotion. Theo, thankfully, is much less opaque. First, he raises his eyebrows at me. Then he mouths “Wow!” He’s probably at that set of arpeggios from the viola that melt under those big chords.
“What are you listening to?” Theo’s girlfriend, Lily Ann, asks as she sits down with her lunch tray.
Theo puts a finger up, telling her to wait.
When it’s over, Evita finally smiles. “Yes, Lacey. Absolutely. We should record it ASAP.”
“It’s great,” Theo says, throwing an arm around me and giving me a squeeze.
I can’t keep the smile from my face. “Awesome.”
“You nailed it,” Theo says as he stands and joins Lily Ann on the other side of the table.
“Can I listen?” Lily Ann asks.
“Of course,” I say with a forced smile.
“So, if we can record this today after school, we can send it in by Wednesday. Or even tomorrow. You know I don’t mind pulling an all-nighter,” Evita says.
“That’s not necessary,” I tell her. “Let’s just do it Saturday. We were going to rehearse other stuff this afternoon anyway, right?”
“Okay. It can wait until the weekend. But you have to slate the entire weekend for this endeavor and band practice.”
“The whole weekend?” I ask. “I have that other project, though…” Evita knows I’m working on a piece for Theo’s birthday next week.
“Pretty sure that’s almost finished,” Evita says.
“What is?” Theo asks.
“Nothing!” Evita and I say in unison, grinning conspiratorially.
“Weirdos,” Theo says.
“We have absolutely nothing going on other than rehearsals and audition recordings. The sooner we send them in, the sooner we get accepted and the sooner we look for an apartment,” Evita says.
The three of us are applying to Berklee College of Music in Boston. It’s been the plan since before we even got to high school. Play music. Listen to music. Study music. Leave our small town in North Carolina for college in Boston. Play even more music. Conquer the world.
It’s only October, so we don’t need to rush. And Berklee has rolling admissions, so it doesn’t really matter when we submit, but Evita wants us to send them at the exact same time, so we hear back at the same time. She wouldn’t cop to feeling nervous that one of us won’t get in, but none of us has a backup plan. It’s Boston or bust. It’s funny we’re so set on Boston, especially since none of us has even been there.
Theo is listening again, sharing the headphones with Lily Ann this time.
Seeing them all cozy together always bothers Evita.
“Your face is going to get stuck like that,” I whisper to her. Her somewhat bushy eyebrows are scrunched together, and her upper lip is sneering.
“Not true. This is just my resting bitch face.”
“It’s a face that only appears at lunch, oddly enough,” I say.
Theo kicks me under the lunch table. “Secrets don’t make friends, girls.”
“No secrets here,” Evita says cheerfully.
“It’s good!” Lily Ann says too loudly. She’s either totally oblivious that Evita shoots daggers at her any chance she gets, or she really doesn’t care.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You guys heard Theo’s audition piece?” Lily Ann asks once she’s done listening.
“Evita mixed it,” Theo says through a mouthful of sandwich. He also definitely played it for us during quartet rehearsals. Lily Ann and Theo and I, along with this other guy Scott, have a string quartet that meets last period every day for an independent study credit. Apparently, Lily Ann doesn’t recall that. Or maybe she just likes to keep the conversation spinning around Theo.
“Oh yeah. It’s just super good, right?” Lily Ann asks. She turns to Theo and puts a hand on his arm. “You should seriously send it to some of the conservatories I’m applying to.”
“I’m not a conservatory kind of guy,” Theo says, kissing her on the forehead.
“You’re just such a brilliant cellist,” Lily Ann says with a pout.
Evita crosses her arms. “Just because someone can play classical music doesn’t mean that’s all they should do.”
“I know he’s more than just a good cello player,” Lily Ann says defensively.
“Right. He’s also hot,” Evita says. “And an epically good kisser.”
“Evita,” Theo groans.
This is Evita’s MO: say something to make Lily Ann uncomfortable by bringing up her own history with Theo, even though, historically, it’s not something she talks about all that often. No one mentions the brief period when Evita and Theo were together, or the even more painful period after they broke up, unless it’s to rub Lily Ann’s nose in it. The subtext is always: “It’s not as if it’s a feat to get Theo to sleep with you.” Lily Ann seems infuriatingly immune to these comments, but Theo always caves in on himself when it comes up.
“I have to pee,” I say, grabbing Evita’s arm and pulling her with me. “We’ll be back.” The hallway is mostly empty since it’s still the middle of lunch. “Do you really need to do that?”
“I honestly can’t help myself. The two of them make me want to vomit.”
“You didn’t always hate Lily Ann,” I point out.
Evita’s the one who adopted Lily Ann at the start of the year when she moved to town. Evita picked her out of the crowd the first day in August as a “lonely new kid.” It’s the exact same way she saved me when I was the new kid on the first
day of sixth grade.
As soon as she found out that Lily Ann played violin, Evita asked her to sit with us at lunch, since Theo and I also play in the school orchestra and were already hoping to find another violinist for our quartet. Lily Ann didn’t know the history with Theo and Evita. She didn’t know that Theo was sort of spoken for. Before we knew it, Lily Ann and Theo were a thing, and our “perfect senior year was ruined,” as Evita likes to say.
“I just wish he’d date someone deserving of him,” Evita says, pushing the bathroom door open.
There’s a girl at the mirror adding mascara to already-mascaraed eyelashes. She glances over at us. This school is small, and everyone is always up in everyone else’s business. One of the things I love about Evita is that she does not care who knows her business. But I prefer to be invisible.
“You don’t think anyone would be good enough for him,” I say quietly.
“Well. Right.”
“Okay, but, he’s with Lily Ann now, and what do you think is going to happen if she decides she doesn’t want to put up with your scowling and under-the-breath comments?”
“She’ll break up with him?” Evita says hopefully, but she obviously doesn’t believe this. She sighs. “Okay. You’re right. I will attempt niceness.”
“Honestly, nice would be amazing, but we could all probably settle for civil,” I tell her. “You do not want him to have to choose between Lily Ann and us. Somehow we haven’t lost him yet.” I can’t imagine facing high school without Evita and Theo.
“I’ll make an effort,” Evita mumbles.
“Hey, Jess?” a voice from a stall asks the girl with the mascara.
Jess peels herself away from listening intently to our conversation. “Yeah?”
“Do you have a tampon?”
“No, sorry,” Jess says.
I reach into my bag without a second thought and pass a tampon under the door. My mom always tells me to carry more feminine protection than I need. Part of her “sisterhood” philosophy.
“Thanks!” the girl says.
“So…,” Evita says, “do you actually have to pee?”
“No.”
“Okay. Meeting adjourned. I will be nice.” Evita throws the door open.
Back at our lunch table, Evita makes a barely audible apology and we all move on. Theo catches my eye and mouths “Thank you.” I shrug.
The bell rings, dismissing us from lunch. Theo, Evita, and I go one way to our senior seminar class, while Lily Ann goes to a different class. She has complained about this fact every day for the last two months.
“I don’t know why I didn’t sign up for that class,” Lily Ann moans.
“Because it’s boring and you don’t like taking easy classes with no homework?” Evita offers unhelpfully.
“It really is boring,” Theo agrees. So far, it’s mostly been about college or trade schools or community college or job applications. “It’s fine, babe, I’ll see you in independent study.”
At the word babe, Evita turns to me. I shake my head before she can pantomime vomiting. But, let’s get real, when people call each other babe it’s sickening.
“Okay,” Lily Ann says. She pouts and Theo puts his arms around her waist and whispers something in her ear that makes her grin.
“Ugh. Come on,” Evita says, linking arms with me.
* * *
Evita and I drop our lunch stuff in Theo’s locker because it’s the closest to the senior seminar classroom. We’re the first to arrive, so we claim our usual table in the back. Theo slips in right before the bell, sitting a row in front of us.
There’s this nervous-looking guy sitting behind the teacher’s desk. Our teacher, Mrs. Einhorn, introduces him as the guest speaker.
“We’re starting a new unit on healthy life choices. Mr. Robbins is here to kick this unit off. He has a lot of wisdom to share, so I hope you give him your attention.”
Evita and I exchange a look. We’re generally on the same wavelength. Without saying anything, I know she’s as skeptical as I am that our backward school will ever teach us anything useful in a health unit. Evita and I have more than just music in common. We were both raised by single mothers. Single, liberal, feminist mothers. My mom was a teenager when she had me, and she has spent my entire life talking to me about “healthy life choices.” Things like safe sex and consent and women’s health.
Mom and I still laugh about how my sophomore health class was a lot like the one in Mean Girls, where the gym teacher is so uncomfortable discussing sex that he basically tells them just “don’t do it,” then hands out condoms. Our class was a lot like that … minus the condom part. When I told her about that class, my mom threatened to take the issue of abstinence-only sex education to the school board. But at the end of sophomore year, she found out she was pregnant with my little brother, Dylan, and a few things fell by the wayside. We still smash the patriarchy in smaller, subtler ways.
“To get us thinking about the impact our choices have on our lives, Mr. Robbins is going to be talking about the choices he has made. Some were healthy, and some were not. I’m hopeful you’ll learn a lot from his experiences,” Mrs. Einhorn says.
Mr. Robbins stands up awkwardly and grips index cards that he starts to read from. At first he’s mostly talking about alcohol. His story is familiar. Half the kids here could probably relate to it. First, he was just drinking at parties, then whenever he was with friends, then all the time, even when he was alone. Theo, Evita, and I are generally too busy with music to go to parties in the mountains or at the nearby college campus. But we still hear all about them. From everyone.
Half the class is doodling or fiddling with jewelry or chewing on pencils, even when Mr. Robbins talks about dabbling in other drugs. But then Mr. Robbins starts talking about sex. Everyone sits a little taller.
But instead of going into anything useful about sexual health, he just lists it as a regret. Being drunk and high all the time caused him to do the unforgivable: he had life-ruining sex! The kind where you get a girl pregnant.
Mrs. Einhorn starts chiming in with how sex is not something you can take back. She and Mr. Robbins are demonizing sex at every turn and my hands flex and un-flex. I bite my lip to keep from blurting something out. They are completely skipping an important issue. If you’re going to talk about drugs and sex, then you should be talking about consent and how tricky the issue is when you are drinking. Or about—I don’t know—contraception!
But of course they don’t talk about contraception. Because if you get pregnant, then it’s obviously your fault for making bad choices. Shame on you!
This whole talk reeks of stigma. And if my mom has taught me anything, it’s that demonizing and stigmatizing sex prevents everyone from getting information on safer sex. That stigma hits girls extra hard. And my mom knows about that, because she was once a pregnant teenager. Instead of getting support from her family and friends, she got a lot of judgment. If I could travel back in time and punch my mom’s unsupportive friends in the face, I would. And I’m not generally a violent person.
I keep fighting the urge to raise my hand and give them a piece of my mind, but I always chicken out. Just when I don’t think I can keep these thoughts to myself any longer, the bell finally rings. I get out of there as fast as I can. My face is burning, because this whole class feels like an attack on everything I’ve been taught and believe in.
Theo and Evita catch up to me and Theo hands me a tally sheet. If they can tell I’m upset by the class, they choose not to address that.
“What’s this?”
“Eye rolls, Burke. Yours.”
“You sit in front of me,” I point out.
“Yes, but you make this sound when you roll your eyes,” Theo says.
“I do not!”
“Yeah, you do, like this little pfffff through your front teeth.”
I roll my eyes and, yeah, that sound is automatic. “Shit!” We stop by Theo’s locker, drop our binders in there, and grab our go
vernment stuff. “You do realize,” I say, “that that lecture was basically fearmongering. I did not sign up for that.”
“It’s an easy A. What more could you want?” Evita asks.
“I just…” I get this annoying prickle between my shoulder blades. Under all my feminist rage, my insecurities are simmering. Namely: Do I even know what I’m talking about? Aside from listening to my mother all my life, do I know anything? I have never even been kissed. No one has ever wanted to kiss me. So what do I actually know about sex?
“What?” Theo asks. I swear no thought I have gets past him.
“It’s like, I’ve had a few drinks before—”
“We were there,” Evita interrupts.
I sigh. This whole topic is embarrassing, even if, intellectually, I know it shouldn’t be. It’s that damn stigma. “Well, even when I was buzzed or whatever, it isn’t like I suddenly lost control and jumped anybody. They make it seem like if you have a drink or kiss someone you’ll just … I dunno … lose control and the next thing you know you’ve contracted an STI and gotten knocked up. But, for real, is that it? Are we all just ticking time bombs, waiting to lose control?”
“It’s not like that,” Evita says. She knows I worry about this. My mom is the smartest person I know. But she had me at sixteen. There are probably half a dozen pregnant girls in our school at any given time. What other explanation would there be for so many people making so many mistakes?
“Not for you,” Theo says. Evita seems to brush the comment aside, but we both know that he’s still hurt by the fact that his and Evita’s sexual experimentation ended when Evita concluded that sex wasn’t for her. She just didn’t want much past kissing and cuddling. And even though she has been totally clear that it wasn’t Theo’s fault, and that she isn’t sexually attracted to anyone, it still seems to make Theo insecure.
“My asexuality aside,” Evita says to me, “you don’t lose control. And you are the least out-of-control person I know. And you know more about sex than any other virgin I’ve ever met.”
The Birds, the Bees, and You and Me Page 1