Happy Messy Scary Love

by Leah Konen

  Back at my house, we situate ourselves on the back porch with iced teas while my mom cooks in the kitchen and my dad finishes a conference call.

  “So did you see him today?” Katie asks. “Jakey-Poo?”

  “Can we just say no to the baby names, please?” It’s a favorite habit of Katie’s, anytime I get a crush. And it never works the other way around, because Katie, dedicated, passionate Katie, hasn’t gotten a crush since her ex, Dexter. It’s almost like crushes are beneath her. Along with the New School’s acting program and who knows what else.

  “Fine.” She shakes her tea, ice clinking like it’s some sort of timer. “So? Did you?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And?”

  “At first I thought it was a good sign, because he wasn’t even supposed to be at work today. He’s at his internship.”

  “You mean he came all the way just to see if little stomach-issues Olivia was okay?”

  “He said he left something there and was on lunch, but . . .” I shrug. “It was nice, I guess. At first.”

  “So what happened?” She tips back her tea and stretches out her legs. Damn, she really did get sun today. I curse myself for never having discovered said swimming spot on my own.

  “I don’t know. It just felt friendly. He asked me how I was, said he’d see me tomorrow, that kind of thing. Then he asked about you.”

  Katie sits up straighter, crossing her legs and turning to me. There’s that gleam in her eye again. “So you didn’t ask him on a proper date or anything?”

  I shake my head. “Something about the whole thing was just . . . off. Plus, I didn’t have the guts.”

  Katie nods, as if taking the situation in. “All good. In fact, this fits right in with the plan I’ve been formulating all day. I mean, a girl has a lot of time to think when she’s alone at a swimming hole.”

  “Oh, god.”

  Katie raises a hand, preemptively halting any and all objections. “Hear me out. It’s good for me, it’s good for you, it’s even good for Jakey-Poo.”

  “You said you’d stop with that.”

  She nods. “Okay, that was my last one. Only because it rhymed—totally worth it. I will abstain from here on out.”

  The water trickles down the small stream on the edge of our property—it sounds like softly ringing bells—and it’s so nice that for a second, I can pretend that none of this is happening, that all of it is okay. “All right, all right, what is it?”

  “I’m Jake’s friend, right?”

  I scoff. “No, actually you don’t know him from Adam.”

  Katie laughs and runs her finger along the edge of the glass. Around me, the sky seems to darken as the sun sets further, as if someone is up in the sky, messing with a dimmer. The crickets are beginning their chorus, and it feels suddenly like the witching hour, the point in the movie when the people come up with their plan. I make a mental note to make sure at least one of the scenes in The Bad Decision Handbook takes place at dusk.

  “Look,” she says. “I know I don’t know him, beyond our thrilling twenty minutes of conversation at the burger place. But what I mean is, my character, Carrie, she knows him, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s his friend?”

  I pause, trying to parse out exactly what Elm and I were to each other when it was only online. I know there was always something more. The excitement I felt at getting each new message, the way I’d half plan my entire schedule around it. The first time I saw his photo, how cute, how adorable, he was. I’m sure of it now. I wouldn’t have freaked out and dashed off that photo of Katie, getting myself into this mess in the first place, if I didn’t feel something romantic for him, even then.

  Maybe he did, too. I’m pretty sure he did.

  But that’s the problem—it’s like one big sick joke. Even if Elm really did like me, it wasn’t long before I sent him that photo of her, which was exactly when our chatting went full on. For all I know, half of why he’s been so interested in talking is because of her photo. Now that she’s here, in the flesh, how can I even compete?

  “Olivia?” Katie asks.

  “Yes, sorry. She’s his friend. I’m his friend, I mean.”

  “Right? So he trusts her.”

  The words cut me like a knife. He shouldn’t trust Carrie, shouldn’t trust her at all.

  “Olivia, focus.”

  I nod. “Okay, sorry. Yeah, he trusts Carrie.”

  Katie clasps her hands together. “Great. So basically, I’ll present myself as the world’s most abhorrent version of a woman so you shine by comparison.”

  “What?” I ask.

  Katie laughs quickly. “Sorry, it was a joke. That’s the gross, sexist version, the plague of rom-coms and the like. What I’ll actually do is use my position as his friend to act as, drumroll please . . .”

  Katie beats a fake drum roll on her thighs.

  “Out with it,” I say.

  She beams. “The ultimate wingwoman!”

  I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”

  “He likes you, even if you can’t see it. Even if he’s maybe a little off the mark about his online pen pal’s real identity. So I’ll use that power to steer him in your direction.”

  I sigh. “Isn’t that just more deception?”

  Katie shakes her head vehemently. “Not at all. He likes the nerdy-film-buff you, and he likes the in-person, trying-desperately-to-be-outdoorsy you. It’s not our fault that he doesn’t realize they’re the same exact person.” She pauses. “Actually it is our fault; well, your fault. But we can’t help that now, can we?”

  I sip the last of my tea. “Maybe I should, I don’t know, just tell him.”

  Katie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

  “Why not?”

  “Must I remind you of the Dexter Incident?”

  Dexter, Katie’s aforementioned ex: a sweet, nerdy guy we used to see hanging out in the library during lunch, when we were all working on a history project. Only Dexter wasn’t working on any project. He liked spending his lunches in the library.

  After a week of observing dear Dexter, Tessa dared Katie to ask him out, for a laugh. It wasn’t particularly kind, and Fatima and Eloise gave us hell about it, but we were fourteen. We were freshmen—and idiots. Katie did, and he said yes, and to our surprise, she actually went forward with the date. And then another. And another.

  Katie liked Dexter, the guy who’d been so far from our estimation of who someone like Katie would be with that the whole thing had been a joke. A few weeks into officially dating, Katie had made the mistake, in a moment of rare vulnerability, of telling him the truth about how things had started, and it hadn’t gone at all like she’d anticipated.

  He’d been (rightly) horrified that he’d been the butt of our joke and had broken up with her on the spot. They’re still friends; she still spends some lunches in the library sometimes; but nothing has happened between them again. It’s half of why I think Katie doesn’t ever get crushes. She’s never gotten over Dexter.

  I shake my head. “This is nothing like that.”

  “Isn’t it?” Katie asks.

  “We were playing a joke on Dexter,” I say. “It was wrong.”

  “And Jake won’t think you were doing the same?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, picking again at a jagged nail. “I hope not.”

  “He won’t think we were laughing behind his back as you fed me hints about what to say about horror movies, a genre in which I have absolutely no interest?”

  “It wasn’t like that, though.”

  “Look, you aren’t going to marry the guy, right?” Katie asks. “I mean, ninety-nine percent of high school relationships are just trial runs, you know?”

  I pause. A tiny part of me wants to be all never say never about it. Because as much as it’s a bit of a stretch to think about meeting the one at seventeen, I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I’ve never been around someone who knows and enjoys
all the parts of me like this, even if he doesn’t yet know that these parts belong to one person, not two.

  But that’s silly. And even if it were fun to entertain, long-term things don’t start out with lies. It’s like Rule No. 1 of The Healthy Relationship Handbook.

  “Of course not,” I say. “I’m seventeen.”

  “Exactly,” Katie says matter-of-factly. “You’re seventeen, and he lives in North Carolina. So have your summer romance. Enjoy his company; you obviously adore him. Don’t go telling him things that are only going to hurt him. If I could do it again, I would never have told Dexter what I told him.”

  “It’s not right, though,” I say.

  Katie tilts her head to the side. “When it comes to romance, sometimes right and wrong isn’t always so black and white.”

  I Scream

  And so the plan goes forward. Another act begins.

  As Carrie, I send a message to Elm:

  CarriesRevenge01: Olivia and I are thinking about getting ice cream after work tomorrow. Want to join?

  He says yes immediately. It’s on.

  After dinner, Katie and I spend the rest of the night preparing for her second appearance as Carrie. She demands I inform her of all the ins and outs of horror, even though I’m not quite sure it’s necessary; but I don’t object. I love talking about the stuff, and it’s rare that she wants to hear it.

  I walk her through the various genres and subgenres, from killer (slasher, home invasion, etc.) to psychological (paranoia and phobias) to monster (zombie, creature feature, and so on) and paranormal (witches, ghosts, haunted houses, and the like).

  I explain that many techniques can cross genres, like found footage, which manifests as a ghost story in The Blair Witch Project and a killer story in movies like Creep and Creep 2.

  Then I go through a few key directors, making sure to point out that there aren’t nearly enough women and that needs to change. And I brush her up on some of the movies Elm and I have specifically discussed.

  Finally, I give her a quick rundown of my screenplay, explaining that it plays on a lot of different genres.

  A dutiful pupil and dedicated actress, the girl even makes flash cards, insisting I quiz her; that is, when she’s not looking up YouTube clips to make sense of my references.

  We stay up too late, quizzing and laughing and eventually watching Carrie, which Katie has never seen. All in all, it’s kind of fun, and I can’t help but love her even more—only a true best friend would go to such lengths.

  A part of me knows I’m only stepping further into some seriously gray territory, and that part is like the viewer in just about every horror film:

  Turn back. Don’t go into the shadows! For god’s sakes, don’t split up! And whatever you do, don’t open that door!

  I can’t help but shake the feeling, the same I have when I watch any of those movies, that this is not going to end well, as much as Katie swears it will.

  Work is busy yet uneventful the next day. It’s so hot out, I take lunch in the lodge again, though I don’t see much of Jake, and apart from a few words exchanged via walkie, we don’t talk much, either.

  Still, I know what’s waiting. The ice cream date where Katie will fully embrace her role as the perfect wingwoman. Our second chance—one I won’t storm out on this time.

  Katie’s ready and waiting in the parking lot when Jake and I walk out together. “Ice cream time?” she asks, running up and high-fiving us both.

  “I scream for ice cream,” Jake says. “And horror, of course.”

  Katie forces a laugh—the only bit of bad acting I’ve ever seen from her—and I suggest the roadside place, my favorite, near North-South Lake. Jake offers to drive the three of us since it’s not too far from Hunter Mountain.

  We pile into the car, me in the front, Katie in the back, and with the classic-rock station as our soundtrack, Jake and I chat about work, how Steinway’s feeling better and back to her usual self, the runaway success of Marianne’s niece’s T-shirt design, and the annoying dad who keeps dropping his kid at Ropeland so he can get drunk in the lodge.

  By the time we reach the general store—a side-of-the-road spot that my parents and I discovered after a long hike around Kaaterskill Falls—horror hasn’t been brought up even once, a tentative win.

  “Oh my god, this place looks amazing,” Katie says as she dashes out of the car and up to the front. She turns back to me. “Girl, it’s like something out of a movie. So quaint.”

  Something out of a horror movie, even.

  It’s like the girl reads my damn mind. “It would be fun to set a slasher movie here,” Katie says.

  “For sure,” Jake says, sidling up in line next to her.

  “I’ll have a cone,” Katie says. A girl about our age in a hot-pink T-shirt jots it on a note pad. “Single or double?”

  Katie turns back to us. “Do I dare?”

  Jake raises an eyebrow. “You should dare,” he says.

  Again, I feel like Katie’s running the show.

  “Double,” she says to the girl.

  “What flavor?”

  “Rocky road,” Katie says.

  “Crazy, that’s my favorite, too,” Jake says immediately.

  Katie laughs. “Coincidence!”

  It’s everybody’s favorite, you guys.

  They both order, and I step up. “I’ll have a double cone, too. Strawberry.” The girl writes the order down, and I hand her a few crumpled bills.

  “Strawberry,” Katie says. “Such a waste.”

  The strawberry vs. chocolate debate has been a long-standing one in our friendship—I love me some chocolate; just not in ice cream, for some reason—but now it only annoys me. “Rocky road is just too much. Sorry.”

  Jake shrugs. “Hey, whatever works.” He nudges me with his elbow, his skin lingering on mine for just a second; and I think, just maybe, that we’re edging back to what we had.

  But just as soon, his arm drops back to his side. He looks at Katie and offers a weak smile. “I’m with Katie on this one, though. Rocky road is fairly unparalleled.”

  My heart sinks once again. He’s with her. Shock of all shocks. Why did I think someone as scene-stealing as Katie could ever be a wing-woman?

  The girl behind the counter returns, holding out the pair of rocky road cones. Katie takes them both, hand-delivering one to Jake. Mine comes out separate and I accept it eagerly, glad to have something to do with my hands.

  We walk over to a pair of benches, where Katie stretches herself out on one, taking up the entire thing. All right, I think. She’s trying to do her part, at least. It’s not her fault she’s so charming that something as small as ordering an ice cream can come off as delightful.

  I sit down on the other bench, Jake only a couple of inches away, and we dig in.

  He’s halfway through his first scoop when he pauses, looking up at Katie. “So I have something to tell you,” he says, and I swear my heart stops. I have the sudden, irrational thought that he’s going to say that he likes her, right here in front of me, my ice cream melting in the heat but my heart frozen solid.

  He takes a deep breath. “This is bad, but I still haven’t read your screenplay. I’m going to, though. I promise.”

  “Cool,” Katie says, licking her cone with gusto.

  “I mean, you want me to, don’t you?”

  Katie shrugs. “Sure.”

  Jake’s face falls. “I just thought it was important to you—”

  She interrupts him. “’Course. You’ll see when you read it, but I’ve just been so inspired by the different genres of horror.”

  I nod along. She’s getting this much right, at least.

  But then she goes on. “You know, from your classic killer-slasher sort of thing to your, I don’t know, creature feature. I just really want to push myself, to explore.”

  Jake’s eyes narrow. “I didn’t know it played on creature features. What creatures?”

  I catch Katie’s eyes, shake my hea
d as discreetly as I can. Katie smiles. “Well, it does in that there’s a monster in all of us,” she says. “Isn’t that what horror is always exploring?”

  I could do without any more of her philosophical pronouncements about a genre that until yesterday she knew almost nothing about, but maybe that’s just me.

  “I guess,” Jake says, a little less convinced than when she went off on her tangent about ghost stories. “But I don’t know, really,” he continues. “I think most creature features are pretty cut-and-dried. They don’t have to be deep. That’s kind of what’s refreshing about them. Some are even stupid. Like my bad jokes,” he adds, shooting me a smile before fixing his gaze back on her.

  “But are they cut-and-dried?” Katie asks. “Really?”

  Jake laughs. “Well, yeah, I mean, sometimes a monster is just a monster.”

  Katie licks at her cone. “That’s why I prefer the psychological variety, you know, like Hitchcock’s Psycho.”

  I half want to smash my forehead into my ice cream cone. Hitchcock’s Psycho? Is this a conversation or an essay for her New School program?

  Jake laughs her off. “You know my feelings on Psycho.”

  I do, of course, but Katie doesn’t. He thinks it’s horribly overrated. It’s one of the very few points on which he and I disagree.

  “I mean, doesn’t everyone love Psycho? It’s obviously the preeminent film in the psychological horror genre.”

  Oh, god. I shouldn’t have trained her so well. Hell, I shouldn’t have trained her at all.

  Jake bristles. “It’s not, though. Honestly, it’s just Hitchcock getting all these accolades because he dared to kill off the lady who we’re led to think is his main character in the beginning of the movie. Remember? We talked about this. Like, for an hour.”

  In his voice, I hear a flash of hurt, and I want to turn to him, tell him I don’t forget things like that. I listen to him, even when I disagree. I care about his opinions, even if sometimes I think they’re silly.

  Katie’s eyes flick to me, all, Help.