Sixteen

by Megan Mccafferty

  Before she got out of the car, Hope reminded me to stop by her room before she left. And that’s when I told her that I might not be able to make it because I had, uh . . . something to do with my mom. Hope accepted this, the lamest of excuses, knowing it was a lie, knowing like best friends know things. And so she got out of the car quickly, before my mother could embarrass both of us by loudly announcing that she had no idea what I was talking about.

  Hope understood why I needed to lie, and why I’d spend our last moments avoiding the one person I wanted to be with. She knew I was afraid of showing up at her house early and just sitting there, silently watching her pack, getting all emotional over a Jane’s Addiction T-shirt or a half-empty box of Tampax.

  And I know this now: that if I’d had the nerve to tell her what I was thinking, Hope would’ve laughed—a loud, nasal, spitty laugh—before pointing out the obvious.

  “Jessica,” she would’ve said. “The box is half full.”

  six

  “Jessie?”

  Hope’s mom calls out to me from the front porch. Mrs. Weaver is a shorter, faded version of Hope. She’s wearing a pair of too-blue jeans and a too-new sweatshirt revealed beneath an unbuttoned too-puffy coat. Her husband is wearing the masculine version of the same outfit. These are moving clothes bought especially for the occasion.

  “Why are you sitting out here, dear?”

  Her words hang in the air as icy puff-puff-puffs.

  Mr. Weaver also sees me but gives only a halfhearted kind of wave. He knows I blame them for this.

  “I’m . . .”

  I can’t think of anything logical to say, so I just stand up and walk toward them.

  “We were expecting you here earlier,” she says.

  Mrs. Weaver looks nervous, as if she knows the move could save Hope in a way she couldn’t save her only son, yet, at the same time, could contribute to the shocking chain of events that will eventually turn me into a Jersey Shore crack whore.

  “Uh . . .” I say, glancing at the U-Haul parked in the driveway.

  “We’re supposed to be leaving in a few minutes, but you know Hope. . . .”

  Yes, I know Hope. Better than anyone. Better than you.

  “You should go on up there now,” she says. “See if you can get her moving. . . .”

  You’re moving just fine without my help. One thousand miles away . . .

  “We still want to leave on time. . . .”

  I look at my watch. Tick tick tick.

  Now I have to see Hope, but not because Mrs. Weaver told me to. I have to see her because not seeing her doesn’t make any sense anymore. Not that it ever did.

  five

  When I walk in her room, Hope is lying on top of a pile of clothes she has yet to shove in her suitcase. A floral granny dress. A beaded cashmere sweater. A patchwork denim jacket. She’s on her back with her legs flipped up and over her head, so the toes of her beat-up Chuck Taylors are touching the carpet in back of her. She speaks to me through her knees.

  “Hey,” Hope says.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “I’m distracted,” Hope says.

  This doesn’t surprise me. Hope can focus about as well as an ADD-addled zygote. Whenever Hope and I studied together, she was astonished that I could be silent for more than two minutes without sharing a random observation like:

  “Frosted Pop-Tarts have ten fewer calories than regular Pop-Tarts.”

  Or:

  “There’s a town in Arkansas called Toad Suck and people actually live there.”

  Or:

  “I only have hair on my big toe.”

  And so on.

  All non sequiturs were followed by, “What’s up with that ?!” And no matter how many times I’d shrug in ignorance, she’d still look at me expectantly, thinking I might have an explanation for all these things that made no sense at all.

  “I’m distracted, too,” I reply long enough after her initial comment to illustrate my point.

  And then it gets too quiet.

  “I have to go,” I say, though I just got there and I’m not the one who has to go anywhere. I just can’t be there, knowing that she will soon be gone.

  Hope rolls her legs forward and looks almost surprised for a second.

  “Most people would want to take a picture right now,” she says.

  “With plastered-on, toothpaste-commercial grins.”

  “When we don’t feel like smiling at all.”

  “Exactly.”

  I would never add a fake momento like that to the Sophomore Friendship Shrine.

  four

  I hug Hope. Her arms hang long and limp at her sides as if they have—independent from the rest of her body—fallen into a deep slumber. A few seconds into the hug she wakes them up and clumsily returns the gesture. I’ve caught her off guard. I’ve never hugged her before, not even after Heath died.

  I regret the hug immediately. We’ve never been touchy-feely friends, unlike the Clueless Crew, who make a huge production out of kissing one another hello with a wet MWAH! smacking sound just to show everyone how tight they really are. Hugging Hope at that moment, to me, is the first of many changes that will occur between us with her there and me here, changes we won’t seek out but that will happen anyway, whether we want them to or not.

  “I’m sorry we’re moving right before your sweet sixteen,” she says after dropping her arms out of our bungled embrace.

  My birthday is in nineteen days.

  “Bitter,” I correct.

  “Bitter sixteen,” she repeats, but quieter.

  Neither of us laugh at the joke.

  “I have your present,” she says, handing me a flat, rectangular package wrapped in white tissue paper. “But don’t open it until your birthday.”

  “Sure,” I croak. “Now I have something to look forward to.”

  This comes out sounding more loserish than I had intended. Hope’s face caves in on itself.

  “Don’t worry about my birthday,” I say, steadying my voice as I look around the room for the last time. “Because I really don’t care.”

  Hope is trying very hard to put her face back together.

  “Really,” I say.

  Then I turn and walk out the door, letting it close by itself.

  We make a point not to say good-bye because this isn’t really good-bye. Or so we silently promise ourselves, anyway.

  three

  I pause outside Hope’s door, thinking about the words “I don’t care.”

  Hope more than anyone knows that I do care about my sixteenth birthday, as I always have since seeing the Molly Ringwald movie that promised the fulfillment of my most important blow-out-the-candles wishes on that day. I care about turning sixteen because I have a tendency to care too much about everything. But I claimed not to care because I had to say something and it was the first thing that came to mind. If I had taken the time to dig deeper, I would’ve started to cry. And I don’t have time to cry. I don’t have time to be sad. I have to get psyched up for a New Year’s Eve party I don’t want to go to.

  Even though I really need something to look forward to, I stop in her driveway and tear the tissue paper off the package she’s just given me. In my hands, I see Hope and me rendered in bits and pieces of magazine pages. Hope carefully cut and glued each scrap in a mosaic recreation of a toothy, goofy photo taken at that pineapple-and-whipped-cream sleepover. Browns, reds, greens, blues, and too many colors to count, tiny like the confetti that will be thrown all wild and WHOO-HOO!into the air when the clock strikes midnight.

  I don’t know what else to say about it but this: It is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and will permanently replace all the photos on the Sophomore Friendship Shrine.

  I am stunned to tears. I look up through watery eyes to see Hope laughing at me in the window. She mouths the words, “I knew you’d open it.”

  And I knew she’d watch me.

  two

  I walk, slowly and alone, staring down at
the bricks beneath my feet. I watch them turn to gravel, the gravel turn to grass, and concentrate on each step. I enjoy the quiet and wonder how long it will last. How long I will last.

  A shrill blond voice shouts hello from a distance, but I don’t acknowledge it. She’s too late. I don’t feel like talking about Hope anymore. The moment has passed. So I won’t vent to Mom when I get home, or to the Clueless Crew at the party, or to anyone else, ever.

  one

  I’ve just left behind the only person who would know exactly what to say.

  about the Contributors

  Steve Almond’s story collection, My Life in Heavy Metal (Grove, 2002), is out in paperback. His stories have been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize 2003, Best New Stories from the South, Best of Zoetrope, Best American Erotica, and elsewhere. His new book, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, is just out from Algonquin. It’s a non-fiction project about obscure candy bars. He cowrote Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions with Julianna Baggott, also to be published by Algonquin. For more information, check out www.stevenalmond.com.

  The inspiration for “The Day I Turned Chickenhearted”: “Everything you are in life, you are at sixteen. Only more.”

  M. T. Anderson is the author of three novels for teens and several books for children. His most recent novel, Feed (Candlewick Press, 2002), won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award.

  The inspiration for “The Mud and Fever Dialogues”: “Pyrrho, Empedocles, and Anaxarchus were all real philosophers; this story is based loosely on stories of their lives and teachings. Though Pyrrho could never be convinced that the universe actually existed, he lived to the ripe old age of ninety.”

  Julianna Baggott is the author of the national bestselling novel Girl Talk (Pocket Books, 2001), The Miss America Family (Pocket Books, 2002), and The Madam (Atria Books, 2003), as well as a book of poems entitled This Country of Mothers (Southern Illinois University Press, 2001). She has also contributed dozens of short stories and poems to such publications as Ms., Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2000, and has read her work on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Her next book, Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions was cowritten with Steve Almond and will be published by Algonquin. She is currently working on her first novel for young adults, The Anybodies.

  The inspiration for “The Future Lives of Emily Milty”: “My own life didn’t inspire my short story. I don’t find my own life very inspiring, which in some ways is a lot like my character, Emily Milty, which makes the first statement ironic. My memories of sixteen are blurry, but that’s probably because I was partially blinded by eyeliner and my nauseous infatuation with Paul ‘Augie’ Augustine.”

  Cat Bauer’s first novel, Harley, Like a Person (Winslow, 2000), was an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and a Popular Paperback. It was also selected as a Booklist Top Ten Youth First Novel, a Bookreporter Top Ten Teen First Novel, and a BookSense 76 Pick. In Europe, Harley is published in Danish, as Harlekindukken, and in Dutch, as Harley, Niet de Motor. A former actress, Cat now lives in Venice, Italy, where she contributes regularly to the International Herald Tribune’s Italian supplement. She is also working on her next novel, which spans two continents. Visit her website, www.catbauer.com. “Venetian Fan” is dedicated to Spencer Davis.

  The inspiration for “Venetian Fan”: “Cold cuts catered by Uncle Phil straight from the meat department at the A&P— that’s what I remember about my sixteenth birthday. I was born in July, so I had a pool party. Sunglasses and bathing suits. Girlfriends. Some relatives. Probably my boyfriend showed up. A typical suburban New Jersey scene, nothing like my story. ‘Venetian Fan’ was inspired by the Titian fresco of St. Christopher in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, where I now live. I imagined what it would feel like to be alone in a foreign country on your sixteenth birthday—a thrilling, awkward crossroad between childhood and adult.”

  Tanuja Desai Hidier’s first novel, Born Confused (Scholastic, 2002), is both a Larry King and a Sunday Times (London) book of the week, and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. She has been a recipient of the London Writers Award for fiction as well as the James Jones Fellowship; in 2003 her short story “Tiger, Tiger” was included in the Desilicious anthology (Arsenal Pulp Press). She has also worked as a film-maker and is the lead singer/songwriter in two bands, one in New York, the other in London. Their CD of original pop/rock/folk songs based on Born Confused (including the track that led to this story) is now available. Please visit www.ABCreativeD.com for more information.

  The inspiration for “Cowgirls & Indie Boys”: “As for Sulekha, sixteen for me was a borderline: neither here nor there yet everywhere. I was so delighted when Megan asked me to contribute to this anthology, as it allowed me to re-explore that epic moment. I’m deeply interested in the idea of borders—physical, mental, sexual—and of home, possibly because as a child of parents who immigrated from South Africa and India (though probably for a lot of people, regardless of where they’re from), the idea of home was and is such a complex one. At sixteen add in the fact that your body and mind are in the midst of such massive changes, your very tools to navigate the world need to be mapped anew as well. Sweet? Bitter? All of that, and everything in between.”

  Sarah Dessen is the author of five novels, including This Lullaby (Viking, 2002), a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and That Summer (Orchard, 1996) and Someone Like You (Viking, 1998), which were adapted into the 2003 film How to Deal. Her latest novel is The Truth About Forever (Viking, 2004). She lives in North Carolina. Visit her at www.sarahdessen.com.

  The inspiration for “Infinity”: “My family has a summer house in Massachusetts, where I first experienced my own rotary panic. Even now, when I approach one, I still have a moment when the whole thing just seems entirely too daunting. So I’d always wanted to write about it. I think getting your license is like a lot of things in adolescence: incredibly liberating and really scary at the same time. New responsibilities always bring new dangers. What really matters, in the end, is how you learn to face them. That’s what growing up is all about.”

  Emma Forrest, a Brit living in Manhattan, began her writing career at age sixteen as a journalist at the Sunday Times of London. In the intervening decade she has contributed to numerous publications, from The Guardian to Vogue, specializing in no-holds-barred interviews with celebrities like Kate Winslet (whom she made cry) and Brad Pitt (who commissioned her to write a script). She is the author of the novels Namedropper (Scribner, 2000) and Thin Skin (MTV/Pocket, 2003), and her latest novel, Cherries in the Snow, to be published by Three Rivers Press.

  The inspiration for “The Grief Diet”: “ ‘The Grief Diet’ was inspired by the dark places you can wander into if you only ever listen to your music through headphones.”

  David Levithan is the author of Boy Meets Boy (Knopf, 2003) and The Realm of Possibility, which will be published by Knopf in 2004. He grew up in New Jersey, lives in New Jersey, and just might spend the rest of his life in New Jersey if he’s not careful. At age sixteen, he was involved in the fencing team, Junior Statesmen, Quiz Bowl, and took AP Physics. All of which is pretty funny now. Especially the AP Physics. Visit him at www.davidlevithan.com.

  The inspiration for “The Alumni Interview”: “I think sixteen is that year when it finally sinks in that you’re growing up, that life is changing quickly, that home isn’t going to always be home, and that love has a deeper meaning than you ever imagined. For whatever reason, this made me think of alumni interviews—that first nervous step toward college and the future. Intersect that with love and identity, and you have the cross-roads of sixteen.”

  Carolyn Mackler is the author of the acclaimed The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Her first novel, Love and
Other Four-Letter Words, was an ALA Quick Pick and an International Reading Association Young Adults’ Choice. Her third novel, Vegan Virgin Valentine , will be published by Candlewick Press. Carolyn lives with her husband in New York City. Visit her online at www.carolynmackler.com.

  The inspiration for “Mona Lisa, Jesus, Chad, and Me”: One of the things about growing up for which I was least prepared was that some friends slipped away. There wasn’t even a falling-out. It was usually just a drifting apart, developing different views on sex, guys, life, religion, and love. But it didn’t hurt any less. And it always took me a while to sort through what it meant to let friends go and accept that they may never come back.”

  Sonya Sones is the author of Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy (HarperCollins, 1999), a novel-in-verse for teens, which has received a Christopher Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry, the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, and the Gradiva Poetry Award, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her second novel-in-verse, What My Mother Doesn’t Know (Simon and Schuster, 2001), was named an International Reading Association Young Adult Choice, a Booklist Editor’s Choice, and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and was placed on the Texas Lone Star Reading List, as well as being nominated for ten state awards. Both novels were chosen by the American Library Association as Best Books for Young Adults and Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Her newest novel-in-verse is One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (Simon and Schuster, 2004). Find out more at www.sonyasones.com.

  The inspiration for “Cat Got Your Tongue?”: “For me, turning sixteen meant finally, finally getting my driver’s license! “Cat Got Your Tongue?” was inspired by something that actually happened to me when I was much older than sixteen, but it was fun to imagine how I might have reacted if the same thing had happened on the very day that I had first gotten my license.”