by Laura Tims
“So?”
“It’s just—November, and Preston, they’re both . . . kind of . . . What was wrong with our old friends? Lily and Cat? And Brodie?” I ask.
“Those were your old friends.”
“You liked them in middle school.”
“They stopped talking to me when I didn’t get into your honors classes. And then I noticed, surprise, I didn’t even have any of my own friends, because I always hung around with yours. So don’t be weird about Nov and Pres.”
How did I not know any of this?
“You wanna know how I met Pres?” she asks. “He hates gore, right? And one day I see Adam waving some gross picture of guts from a bio textbook in his face. So I yelled at Adam. Like, what the fuck?”
“You hold on to things,” I say, but what do I really know about Adam? Just stupid fantasies. Nothing real, other than that five-minute conversation.
“I don’t forgive people for fucking with my friends. So that’s why it’s a big deal that I’m gonna give Adam another chance.”
My stomach uncoils. “Really?”
“You’re my sister. If you like him, I like him.” She smiles at me. “Or I’ll try, anyway. That’ll be important for when we make him like you. I guess it’s kind of perfect! Adam and Cassius. We’ll have that whole twins-dating-best-friends thing.”
Could I trust her with more than just this? I’m trying to find the right way to start when her eyes widen. I turn and look over my shoulder. The warmth disappears. November Roseby has just walked into the Ice Cream Palace.
“Quick,” she hisses. “Do I have stuff on my face?”
“You’re acting like you have a crush.”
She shushes me and jumps up, waving and hurrying over to November. Apparently we’re not talking about Adam anymore. I get up and throw my ice cream away while she’s not looking.
November moseys over like she’s too cool to move any faster.
“You got my text,” Joy’s crowing.
She invited her? I told her I needed to talk, and she invited November?
“I got your text.” November casually steals a lick from the bottom of Joy’s cone. She hasn’t taken off her sunglasses. She has one of those haircuts where part of her scalp is buzzed. Several of her braids are dyed green. She has three holes in each ear. Rubber bands on each wrist.
What’s so great about her?
“So what’s up?” Joy sits down with her. Loops her arm over the back of the booth, then takes it back. Adjusts her masses of hair. I have a feeling November likes how hard she’s trying.
“Arguing with my asshat dad, as usual.” November yawns, but her shoulders are rigid. “Officer Roseby was bragging about his old arrest record. I pointed out that America has more prisoners per capita than any other country. He told me I’m turning into one of those sassy black girls.”
“Are you kidding me?” Joy yells. “I hate him so much. God.”
She doesn’t weigh her words like I weigh mine. But all her words are light, no matter what they are. They soar out of her. Mine are always so heavy.
“He’s like a hoarder,” says November. “He has a copy of the arrest record of everyone he’s ever arrested. Like a serial killer keeps trophies.”
If I tap my knee on the underside of the table twenty times before Joy finishes her ice cream, November will go away.
“He’s so white,” Joy says. “He probably wears salmon shorts when he’s not in uniform. And spends, like, half his paycheck on fancy cheese.”
“Joy, you’re white,” I say, just to keep from vanishing.
She turns pink. November laughs. Slow. Warm. She tips her sunglasses down. “I like you.”
It’s like a decree of approval from the universe. Joy beams.
“You’re supersmart, yeah?” November says. “Heard you get these wild test scores.”
I am now officially present and accounted for in the conversation.
Though my test scores should be better.
“I dig your makeup,” she adds.
There’s too much of it, Adam told me.
Joy gives November her special look that she’s only ever given me. The you-are-perfect look. Makes you want to do anything to keep from shattering that illusion. But I’m not perfect, not on the inside, so November can’t be, either.
“You’re my two favorite people in the entire world, you know that?” Joy says. “And now we’re all hanging out. We gotta hang out more this summer, the three of us. I’d invite Pres, but he hates people. Oh! I just had the best idea.”
Oh no.
November knocks Joy’s shoulder with her fist. “Yeah?”
“I think the three of us should make something out of this summer.”
What’s wrong with the two of us?
“I think this should be the summer of misdeeds,” she keeps going. “Grace, you’ve been studying forever. We need to do some exciting stuff. Like getting you drunk, Grace, for the first time. Or maybe trying, like, weed. Doesn’t matter. But seriously, we’re going to be juniors. You need to loosen up or you’re gonna regret being so flawless in high school.”
“Corrupting you will keep me from getting too bored,” November offers.
“Yes! You can find us cool parties to go to. We’ll find the boys to make out with.” She winks at me. Apparently we are still talking about Adam. “It’ll help with all your stress.”
“I don’t know, Joy.” She loves being the one who slashes through the jungle with a machete. Forging a path. Pulling me on.
“She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” says November.
“Right.” Joy’s eyebrows dive down. “Sorry.”
Two possible summers. One spent listening to her window open across the hall, the sound of her slipping away while I’m in bed by nine. More distance between us. Or I can become a girl who gets high test scores and sneaks out at midnight. Who reads philosophy books and does drugs. The kind of girl every musician boy wants. An interesting girl.
I sit up straighter. “No, it’s fine. Maybe. The drinking, I mean. Possibly. We could try.”
“Yes!” Joy punches the air. “Mom and Dad are gonna be so pissed that I’m leading you into a life of sin.”
Is this just a way for her to get back at Mom and Dad?
“And you’ll have stories to tell Adam on your first date with him—”
I stare at her. So much for secrets.
“What’s the look?” she adds, then gasps. Mimes zipping her lips. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“You like Adam Gordon?” November hardens.
A beat. Then I shake my head.
Pathetic.
But November doesn’t soften. There’s an awkward silence. Then she stands up. “Actually, I was only swinging by for a minute. Gotta pick up a prescription.”
“That’s fine! I’ll text you!” My sister’s a puppy, bouncing all over her.
The bell above the door rings as November leaves. Then the air’s less intense.
“I’ll make up for that.” Joy grabs my arm. “I’m gonna personally make sure you and Adam hang out this summer. This is your first crush. It’s important.”
She hooks her ankle behind mine and tugs my foot. She’s always touching people without thinking. Trying to drag them into her world.
Maybe this summer I’ll let her.
A week later, it’s the three of us again. I’ve only been to the quarry once before, during the day. It belongs to the town, even though it’s close to Mr. Gordon’s property, but everyone knows he doesn’t mind. Mom and Dad took us for a picnic once when we were nine. They talked about the first time they kissed here, under the moon. That was before everyone started saying how someone might fall.
Now, at night, it’s so dark that you can’t see the bottom. The quarry is an inverted sky without stars. People took what they wanted from the earth, and this scar is still here, even though they’re gone.
“Grace, come here!” Joy’s sitting with November on a blanket scave
nged from the back of her car. Close to the tall dark pines.
“Are you scared?” She laughs at me. “Remember how you used to be afraid of the dark?”
“Shhh!” I hiss.
She pokes my cheek as I sit on the scratchy wool. “I’ll protect you, baby sister. The dark doesn’t scare me.”
“This was all I could steal from my dad’s cabinet. Fair warning, it’s gross.” November pours a tiny glass of liquid. I can’t see what color it is in the dark. She holds it out to me. “Youngest first. I’m not drinking, I drove here. And I want to be very sober in case one of you pukes.”
“She’s not gonna puke.” Joy wraps her arm around my shoulders. The breeze tangles her hair with mine. “Try it, Grace. It’s not that bad.”
“Have you ever had it?”
“Well. No.”
How many calories are in this? I drink it. It sears my throat and I cough. Joy laughs and the quarry swallows the echo. The aftertaste stings hard.
“You like it?” She jostles my shoulders. Throws her legs over mine. She’s touching me so much tonight.
A normal girl would like it. “Sure.”
She shrieks in delight.
“Don’t scream, you maniac.” November glances at the pines.
“Whatever. The Gordons can’t hear us.” Joy grabs the bottle and swigs. It looks badass until she gags and sprays liquid all over the rock.
“That’s what you get.” November stretches out on the blanket and pops one earbud in.
A normal girl wouldn’t have to like it. Everything Joy does is what a normal girl would do.
I stop drinking before she does. She keeps it up until she’s sprawled out on the blanket, cozied up to November, all her insecurities that I didn’t know existed leaping off her like rats off a sinking ship.
“It’s not gonna work with me and Cassius. I know that. I’m too much, I think. Way too much for any guy to want to deal with.”
She’s not too much. I’m not enough.
“I’m not hot,” she says. “Not being hot is fucking annoying.”
Does she ever look at her body and hate every part of it, too?
“Bullshit.” In the dark, November looks like her older sister. “You’re gorgeous.”
That’s all it takes, and Joy’s smiling. What’s the point of being smart, if I can’t think of the words to tell my sister she’s pretty? Why don’t they have a class in how to say the right things to people?
“You’re sooo cool, Nov.” Joy’s babbling. “You’re like my cool big sis. Did you know that? You’re the coolest person ever. God.”
I stop existing.
“I’m not so great,” she murmurs, and I’m the only one who hears. Even though Joy’s closer to November than she is to me.
I wander away from the two of them. Closer to the quarry. If I take three steps, she’ll like me more than November. Four steps and Adam will like me more than anybody.
Fantasy: I fall into the quarry. Adam comes down here in the middle of the night. Finds my broken body. Writes a song about me.
Suddenly Joy’s shouting my name. I blink. The darkness retracts. She’s up, a blur, yanking my arm. We both trip backward into the dirt.
November’s up, too, shepherding us away from the edge. “From now on we stay over here by the trees.”
“Oh my God. You almost fell.” Joy clamps my elbow. “You were right on the edge.”
“I didn’t think I was that close,” I mumble.
“But I got you. I saved you. Remember that time when we were little and I made you climb that tree outside my window? You fell and I didn’t grab you and you sprained your ankle? But I grabbed you this time. Right out of the air. Whoosh!”
“How long do you think it would take to hit the bottom?” I ask.
“A million years. Don’t ask me that.” She stumbles, collapses drunkenly against my side. “Grace. I love you sooo much. Did you know that? You are just. Sooo perfect. Oh my God.”
My sister is an idiot and I love her.
She fumbles with my hands, examining them in the dark. Splaying them out on the blanket. “You have to stop biting your nails.”
“I hate the quarry,” November says suddenly. I forgot about her.
Joy abandons my fingers. “Because Adam lives up there?”
“No. He never comes down here.”
How does she know that? She catches me staring.
“Guys,” Joy says. “Guys. I’m so drunk. I’m hallucinating that Cassius just showed up.”
I follow her pointing finger. Cassius Somerset is hanging back in the tree shadows, the strange patterns on his skin silver in the moonlight. Did he come down from Adam’s house? Is Adam here, too? But no one else is moving in the trees.
“Hey, friends,” he says. Even though none of us are his friends.
“Holy shit.” Joy finger-combs her hair. Her hand gets tangled in the mess. “Hi. Hello. Did you hear us?”
He flinches at her drunk shouting. “I was leaving Adam’s. I heard a scream.”
“That was me! Wow! You should definitely hang out with us for a while, probably. We have whiskey. Can he drink your whiskey, Nov?”
“Cassius, I would be utterly delighted if you would come and drink my whiskey so there’s less for this fool.” November sighs.
He just stands there in the shadows, hands in his pockets.
Joy’s wobbling. “Okay. I have to pee. Grace. Come with me.”
She grabs my arm, not November’s. She drags me away into the woods. Trees close over our heads and the night fills with crunching as she splinters every branch.
“Do you think we’re far enough away where he won’t hear any splashing?” she whisper-yells after a minute.
“Try to pee quietly?”
“How am I supposed to control the volume of my piss hitting the ground, Grace?” And then she’s giggling frantically in dark, fumbling. I wait, facing the other way. Grinning in the dark.
“I need your help,” she slurs as soon as she’s done. “Cassius . . . is . . . beautiful and perfect, and I . . . am . . . drunk, and I love him, and I love you.”
“Do you even know him?” I ask.
“I know that he’s beautiful and perfect.” Joy hiccups. “Help.”
She’s asking for my advice. “Just . . . be nice.”
“Nice,” she repeats. “Right.”
We struggle back through the trees to our blanket. Cassius and November are sitting slightly apart. Talking quietly. They stop when they see us.
“Hello,” Joy declares. About to be nice.
Instead, she vomits absolutely everywhere.
November springs up, businesslike, seizing her arm. Stabilizing her. I should be doing it, but I’m frozen. I didn’t expect this. Neither did Joy, because she’s looking openmouthed at the puke on her shirt like someone else put it there.
“All righty then,” November says wearily. “It has been a night. Nice talking to you for the first time, Cassius.”
Joy moans. Her face glows pale. “I don’t wanna go yet. Cassius came all this way. He walked forever.”
“Everyone walks everywhere here,” November mutters.
Cassius folds his knees to his chest, pulls his sweatshirt sleeves over the patchy skin on his hands. Trying to make himself smaller. I can tell because I do the same thing. Joy takes up a lot of space. It’s hard to fit when she’s around.
“I’m at least taking you to my car to change. I have clean gym clothes in the back.” November disappears with my sister into the woods. And I’m alone with the guy Joy has sex dreams about.
He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy anyone would have sex dreams about. He seems like the kind of guy people should be tucking into bed.
“You and November never talked before?” I’m not usually the one to break a silence.
“Not really . . . we were just talking about—it’s funny—we were just talking about how we both resented how everyone thought we’d be friends, since there aren’t a whol
e lot of black kids at Stanwick. So we avoided each other. But it turns out she’s cool . . .”
Everything he says trails off at the ends. Like periods are too harsh for him. If Joy’s words fly out of her, and I have to pry mine out, his drift from him like summer clouds. He stares dreamily at the moon, tapping the bottle of whiskey with his pinkie. His fingernails are curved and delicate.
Awkwardness stacks up, bricks of it. Does he expect me to say something? But he’s not looking at me. He’s lost in his own thoughts. It’s hard not to feel soft toward somebody when you watch him watch the sky.
After a while, the silence stops being awkward.
“The quarry creeps me out,” he says eventually. “It’s supposed to be this romantic place . . . but it’s just evidence of people screwing up the earth for their own gain.”
It always catches me off guard when someone says something out loud that I was thinking. I always assume nobody else has the thoughts I have.
“I don’t like that you can’t see the bottom at night,” I say.
“Me neither.”
And suddenly I realize I’m talking casually with Cassius Somerset. Something Joy can’t do.
“It feels like, um,” I try. “Like it’s pulling at me.”
“Same.” He nods, and that’s it. He’s not always unspooling the contents of his brain like Joy does, filling so much space with the things in her mind that there’s no room for the things in mine.
“This is our first time drinking,” I confess.
He smiles, not in a mean way.
“We’re doing this, uh. Summer of misdeeds. She’s trying to break me out of my shell or something. It’s silly.”
“It’s not silly . . . it sounds like fun.”
“It feels like everyone else is always already in on this stuff.” The words unstick from me easily for once. Maybe it’s the whiskey. “I don’t even know how to talk about drinking or smoking or, like, which words are normal to use.”
He plays with the edge of the blanket. “Me neither, really . . . I don’t know if those teen parties in the movies with red Solo cups even exist. Sometimes Adam and I steal his dad’s beer and drink in the basement and play Mario Kart. That’s about it.”