Mean

by Justin Sayre

  “Hey, did you see inside yet?” I say.

  “Yeah, it looks really great. I didn’t know you were so into video games. That’s awesome.” He smiles. “You did wonderfully today. Are you glad it’s over?”

  “It’s not over yet.” I smile. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to hang out on Wednesday.” It’s so stupid to say something like that. I mean, I know he knows what happened, but I am sorry we didn’t get to hang out. And he calls me on it.

  “You don’t need to say that. I’m sorry about your grandfather.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for coming today.”

  “Of course.” He smiles and then out of nowhere or I guess out of nowhere I know, he takes my hand for a minute and steps a little closer to me. “I really like you, Ellen. I just want to be around you.”

  “I want to be around you,” I answer. He’s so close to me right now, I want to kiss him in the hallway. I really want to kiss him. I really want to, when just on cue, Allegra comes up.

  “Hey, you guys are hanging out here. I get that, it’s, like, so crowded in there,” Allegra says, not even for a second thinking that maybe we don’t want her around. She doesn’t even see that we’re holding hands. “You did really great today, Ellen. My mom was, like, totally impressed. She’s, like, coming down on me hard to be as good as you.”

  “Well, you can,” I say, letting go of Noah’s hand.

  “I doubt it.” Allegra smiles and starts talking about her dress and the theme of her party, which is the Kardashians. She’s nervous and I can see that, a little. I’ve never seen it with her, and I know what I’m going to do and I’m already annoyed at myself before I actually do it. I ask Noah if I could meet him inside in a minute, and because he’s perfect and amazing, of course he says yes. So now I’m alone with Allegra, so now what?

  “Are you okay?” I ask her, practically kicking myself for doing it because I know she won’t react well.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Allegra says, getting all cagey about it, which makes me want to just run, but I don’t, I stick with her. I ask her again, just telling her that she doesn’t seem like herself a little, and that makes her eyes bug out. “No offense, but how would you even know who I am? You obviously don’t like me. I’m only here because we’re in Hebrew school together.”

  “All right, but so what? I don’t have to like you, but I can still worry about you. I can still wonder if you’re okay,” I reply.

  “You’re actually saying you don’t like me?” Allegra says.

  “Well, no. I don’t. We don’t have anything in common or think about anything in the same ways. But I do worry about you, I am worried about you, and I still want you to be happy.”

  “Even though you don’t like me,” Allegra says.

  “Even though I don’t like you. So, what’s up?” I ask.

  Maybe it’s the honesty that she’s probably never had before, but that opens up the floodgates. She starts spilling it all. She’s worried no one likes her, not just me. Really Sophie and definitely Ducks. She doesn’t have any, like, real friends, let alone a boyfriend, which she wants but can’t ever seem to get. And she sucks at memorizing her Hebrew and her parents aren’t being great about it. Not that they’re really great about anything. “And I just worry that I’m not going to have anyone to be as nice to me as I see everyone is being to you today.”

  “So start being nice to people, Allegra. It doesn’t have to be a game or a competition. There’s nothing to win. There’s only people to be kind to. That’s the whole point,” I tell her. “I know you’re scared and I get it, but the answer to that is people. If you don’t want to be alone or feel that way, then get out there and be with people.”

  “Like now?” Allegra laughs a little.

  “Like now.” I smile.

  “I’m sorry about your grandfather,” she says, still smiling.

  “Thanks. Let’s get in there,” I say, and start to walk into the room. We’re not going to hug and that feels a lot better for both of us.

  When we get inside, there are still so many people to say hello to, but I make my way to my table, because I’m already starving and I can’t just pick at things for a little longer. Mom says we should be having food soon, after all the speeches and everything, and I don’t want to be a brat, but honestly, if I don’t eat something soon, I might just pass out. Aunt Debbie hears all this, and whispers something to a waiter with elf ears and tells me to hold tight.

  Within a few minutes, the same elf-waiter comes out with a big metal covered dish, like in a cartoon, and Aunt Debbie tells him to put it down in front of me. He takes off the cover with a big flourish and underneath there’s a huge pile of fluffy, golden tater tots!

  “See, I’m not such a meanie.” Aunt Debbie smiles at me. I can’t help myself so I hug her because I’m so happy. I hug her only for a minute because I need to get back to those tots. Everyone at the table takes one, even Aunt Debbie, who despite herself has to agree that they are pretty delicious. She actually bought them from my school. She’s that good.

  Charlie stops by to grab some tots and say hello. We laugh a little like two thieves splitting our loot. Charlie’s as nuts about tots as I am, so it’s nice to share them with him. He tells me that he and Ducks are going to a movie Sunday night. He’s really excited and he wants to dance with Ducks today, but he doesn’t know if it’s cool since Ducks hasn’t told his mom and grandmother yet. I tell him to do what he feels, and I hope he feels like they can dance. I would love to see that.

  There is still a little weird in the room. Everyone knows that this is supposed to be a happy event, but it’s so close to such an awful one that the two are blurring together. No one knows whether to laugh or cry or both. Even I don’t know what to do. We all have so much on our minds and in our hearts, it’s hard to figure out what to do with it all.

  There’s music playing, and Hannah grabs at my hand. She loves music, which you probably think is weird since she can’t hear it. But she loves it. She loves feeling the vibrations through her hands and legs and she loves to dance. She’s always dancing, sometimes even when there’s nothing playing. Now she wants to dance with me. I get up and take her to the empty dance floor and we start to dance. Aunt Claire sees this and tells the DJ to turn the music up so that Hannah can feel it even more.

  As the music gets louder, Hannah’s smile gets bigger and we dance. We just dance it all out. Hannah’s dance is wild and jumpy. Her smile makes me laugh, and I copy some of her moves even if they don’t look nearly as cute on me, but I don’t care. We just keep dancing. Mom comes up to us and takes my hand and Hannah’s and joins our little circle. She’s smiling and laughing at how silly we all look but loving every minute of it. Dad takes her hand too, and his dancing is the worst and the best of all. Dad is the worst dancer, but in that moment he is the best.

  Slowly people start joining in. Aunt Claire dances and twirls in her long skirt. She’s sort of doing this hippie Spanish dancer thing that makes my cousin laugh at her, but still, he’s dancing with her. Aunt Debbie pulls Uncle Andrew in with her and they also join our circle. Bubbe hops in too. More people start joining in and soon enough almost everyone is on the dance floor.

  My friends start piling in. Sophie pulls over Allegra, and it’s nice to see them both laugh for a change. I think somewhere past everything that’s happened, they both still like each other. Sophie’s mom claps along on the sidelines but I pull her in and link her up with Sophie, and the circle keeps getting wider. Charlie grabs Ducks and pulls him out to the floor. It’s probably not the way they wanted it, but at least they’re getting their dance, and I smile at them both about that. Ducks’s mom and her boyfriend run onto the floor after them. They’re actually really cute together. I wish Ducks could see that. I’m still dancing with Hannah and smiling when Noah comes up and squeezes in the circle next to me. Bubbe smiles at me again, and I can’t help but
smile back.

  I don’t know when Aunt Debbie decided to get the chair, but suddenly there it is and I’m told to sit down. It’s my turn, as the guest of honor, to be lifted up and paraded around the room.

  Dad, Uncle Andrew, my cousin Aaron, and Charlie lift me up. In a few minutes, Hannah is lifted up in a chair by some of our other cousins from Virginia. We’re bouncing on the chairs and laughing at each other. Neither of us is scared. Everyone around us is clapping, so excited to see us up high and having a blast. It’s up in the chair that I start to get why people get lifted up in chairs anyway. It gives you a chance to see all the love around you, all the love that is literally lifting you up.

  Up there, I see all the faces and hear all the laughter, and I think, this is it. This is what we can all hope for. We can hope to laugh in the face of so much pain. I don’t forget Zayde, and I laugh for him, tilting my head back, I laugh his big laugh for him. It deserves to be here even if he can’t be.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen, with Noah or Ducks and Charlie or moving to Cleveland. And I still don’t know absolutely what kind of woman I want to be, but I do know that I want this. I want all this joy, and the feeling of being lifted up by the people you love and in your turn lifting them too.

  We dance until we’re all of out of breath and exhausted. When the chairs come down, everyone smiles and welcomes me to my party, and I guess to being a part of them again. It feels great. It feels like a lot of things actually. But I’m glad to be here, and I’m glad to be a part of it.

  So I’m a woman now. I don’t feel different. I don’t even know that I look different. But I know something is different. I know that we’re all just trying to get it right. A lot of the time, most of us don’t know what “right” even is, but we’re trying, and that matters. I’m understanding that. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going up the understanding stairs and I’m holding on to that silly empathy banister. I’m trying to be nice to people and nice to myself. We all deserve it. We’re all trying.

  I’m not mean. I never was.

  At best and at worst, I’ve just been me.

  About the Author

  Justin Sayre is a writer and performer, appearing regularly in New York City and Los Angeles. Husky was deemed "a superb addition to the middle grade literary cannon" by VOYA magazine and "[a] moving journey of self-discovery . . ." by Publishers Weekly. In addition to being an author of books for young readers, Sayre was a television writer for 2 Broke Girls and appeared in Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback.

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