Leah on the Offbeat

by Becky Albertalli

  Nora nudges me and asks if I’m okay. Maybe I look kind of surly.

  “Oh my God, are you sick?” asks Taylor.

  “No.”

  “I’m like super paranoid I’m going to catch something. I’ve been drinking so much tea, and I’m resting my voice whenever I’m not in rehearsal, obviously. Can you imagine if I lost my voice this week? I don’t even know what Ms. Albright would do.”

  “Right.”

  “Like, I’m in almost every song.” She does this weird, high-pitched laugh. I can’t tell if she’s nervous and pretending not to be, or the other way around.

  “Maybe you should rest your voice,” I suggest.

  I swear she’s more manageable when we’re rehearsing with the band. Also, I have really good isolation headphones.

  Taylor opens her mouth to reply to me, but then Abby and the guys arrive all at once. Garrett scoots in beside me, and Bram slides next to Taylor, with Abby and Nick on the ends. And it’s funny, because Taylor’s been sitting here with her usual runway-in-Paris posture, but now she’s leaning so hard toward Nick, she’s practically sprawled over the table. “Hey, I hear you and Simon will be in Boston for spring break.”

  Taylor. You’ve been mashed up against Simon’s body in a booth for twenty minutes. But, of course, you couldn’t ask that question until Nick got here.

  “Yup,” Nick says. “We’re doing the last set of school visits—Tufts and BU first, and then Wesleyan, NYU, Haverford, and Swarthmore. So we’re flying into Boston, renting a car, and then flying out of Philly.”

  “Road trip,” says Simon, leaning forward for a high five.

  “With your moms,” says Abby.

  I can’t even get my head around how much people are willing to spend on this stuff. There are the plane tickets, hotels, car rentals, everything—and they don’t even know if they’ve gotten into these schools yet. Not to mention the fact that Simon spent hundreds of dollars on application fees alone, even though he’s dead set on NYU. Which I’m sure has nothing to do with Bram’s early acceptance to Columbia.

  “That is so awesome!” Taylor beams. “I’ll be in Cambridge, visiting Harvard. We should meet up!”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Nick says. Simon almost chokes on his water.

  “Abby, are you looking at the northeast, too?” Taylor asks.

  “Nope.” Abby smiles. “I’m going to Georgia.”

  “You’re not trying to be near Nick?”

  “Can’t afford to be near Nick.”

  Kind of weird to hear her say that out loud. Especially because I’m going to the exact same school for the exact same reason. The University of Georgia is the only place I applied. They accepted me months ago. I qualify for the Zell Miller Scholarship. It’s a done deal.

  But I never know how to feel when I have a thing in common with Abby Suso. I especially don’t know how to feel about the fact that we’re going to the same school. I bet she’ll pretend she doesn’t know me.

  So then Garrett gets going about Georgia Tech’s superiority to Georgia. I don’t even care, but I guess it’s good that Morgan’s not here. It’s funny—Morgan’s such a little social justice geek that you wouldn’t expect this, but she’s actually from one of those hardcore UGA families. All football, all the time. The whole house is decorated red and black, with bulldog faces on everything, and the Hirsches always tailgate before games. I’ll never understand the whole football scene. Like, no shade on football, but I’m kind of more focused on the school part of college.

  I want to zone out, but Garrett keeps baiting me. “Okay, here’s one. Leah, what are the longest three years of a UGA student’s life?”

  “I give up.”

  “Her freshman year.”

  “Haha.”

  Garrett Laughlin. Every day.

  Eventually, everyone starts talking about Bram and Garrett’s soccer game last weekend. Nick looks a little wistful, and I really do get it. It’s not that he’ll never play soccer again. He’ll be back on the field as soon as the play wraps up next week. But it sucks when life moves along without you. Sometimes I feel left out even when life’s moving along with me.

  The waitress swings by again to take the second round of orders, and within twenty minutes, we’ve got a mountain of food. Simon’s gone off on a rant about the play, so I steal a piece of bacon from his plate when he’s distracted.

  “And I just have this sinking feeling it’s all going to fall apart, now that we finally have the orchestra and the sets. Like, sorry, but the sets should have been done a week ago.”

  Nora gives Simon the stink-eye. “Maybe they would be, if anyone actually worked on them other than Cal and me.”

  “Burn,” says Garrett.

  “But at the end of the day,” says Taylor, “the sets don’t even matter. It’s all about the acting.”

  Nora sighs, smiling tightly.

  We linger over our plates for a bit, and then the waitress brings us all separate checks. Pretty awesome of her. I hate combined checks, because someone always wants to split the bill evenly—and I don’t want to be a jerk, but there’s a reason I didn’t order that twenty-dollar sandwich. We take turns walking up to the cashier to pay, and then we stack our tips in a pile on the table. And of course, Garrett, who ordered scattered, smothered, and covered waffles with sausage and hash browns, leaves literally a dollar. I don’t get that. Leave a fucking real tip. I throw an extra couple of dollars down myself to make up for it.

  “Pretty big tip for a Coke,” Abby says, and I bite back a smile. The others are making their way to the door, but she hangs back, buttoning her peacoat.

  “My mom used to be a waitress.”

  “Well, it’s just really nice of you.”

  I shrug and smile, but my lips feel stretchy. I’m always weird around Abby. I guess I just have issues with her. For one thing, I can’t stand people who are that pretty. She’s got these Disney eyes and dark brown skin and wavy dark hair and actual cheekbones. And she has the opposite of a resting bitch face. Basically, Abby is human candy corn. She’s fine in small doses—but too much, and you’ll puke from the sweetness.

  She gives me this half smile, and we both step outside. Taylor and her ball sack are gone, and Garrett’s already left for a piano lesson. Everyone else is just standing around. Simon and Bram are holding hands, sort of, but only the tips of their fingers are laced together. Which is about as hot as it gets for the two of them in public.

  Nick, on the other hand, wraps his arms around Abby, like he has to make up for the hour spent on opposite sides of a booth. Typical. So, I guess we’re doing the whole lovesick-couples-in-front-of-Waffle-House thing. Maybe Nora and I should make out now, just to stay relevant.

  But Abby disentangles from Nick and walks toward me.

  “That’s really beautiful,” she says, pointing at my phone case. It’s actually one of my manga sketches—Anna surprised me with it for my birthday this year. “You drew that, right?”

  “Yeah.” I swallow. “Thanks, Abby.”

  Her eyes widen, just barely, like I threw her off somehow just by saying her name. I guess we don’t talk a lot. Not outside of group stuff. Not anymore.

  She blinks and then nods. “So, hey. The University of Georgia.”

  “Is a school.”

  “Yes.” She laughs—and suddenly, she’s all doe eyes and hesitation. “I kind of wanted to ask you—”

  A horn honks, and we both look up. I recognize Abby’s car—or Abby’s mom’s car, I guess, but today, the driver is a boy with the most gorgeous cheekbones I’ve ever seen—wide eyes, brown skin, maybe early twenties.

  “Oh my God, my brother’s home! He wasn’t supposed to get in until tonight.” Abby grins, touching my arm briefly. “Okay, hold that thought. We’ll touch base tomorrow.”

  A moment later, she’s kissing Nick good-bye. I look away quickly, squinting up at the sun.

  3

  I TEXT MOM, WHO SAYS she’ll pick me up at Waffle House on her way home. So
on, everyone’s gone but Bram, who scoots in beside me on the curb.

  I smile at him. “You don’t have to wait with me.”

  “Oh, I’m not. My dad’s in town, so he’s picking me up.”

  Bram’s parents are divorced, which I find weirdly comforting. I don’t mean that in a bitchy way. I don’t want Bram to have a shitty home life or anything. It’s just that most of my friends have these storybook-perfect families. Sitcom families—married parents in giant houses, with framed family portraits lining the staircases. I guess it’s nice not being the only one missing that.

  “Just for a visit?”

  Bram nods. “He and my stepmom came up for the week with Caleb. We’re getting ice cream after this.”

  “I can’t believe Caleb’s big enough for ice cream. Wasn’t he just born?”

  “I know, right? He’ll be one in June.”

  “Unreal.”

  Bram smiles. “Want to see him? He’s my lock screen.”

  He hands me his phone, and I tap the screen on. “Okay, this is too adorable.”

  It’s a selfie of Bram and Caleb, smiling with their faces smooshed together, and it’s the cutest photo ever taken. Bram’s dad is white, and I guess his stepmom must be, too, because Caleb’s the palest little white baby I’ve ever seen. Somehow, it surprises me every time I see a picture of him. He’s totally bald, too, with giant brown eyes. But it’s funny, because Bram and Caleb look weirdly alike. Even though Bram’s skin is brown and he has hair and doesn’t drool. It’s kind of wild.

  Bram sticks his phone in his pocket and leans back on his hands, and I feel this wave of unexpected shyness. It occurs to me, suddenly, that this may actually be the first time Bram and I have hung out one-on-one, even though he moved here after freshman year. He was always in the background for me until he started dating Simon. To be honest, I kind of lumped him together with Garrett.

  I try to beat back the awkwardness. “Want to see something?” I ask.

  “Sure.” He sits up.

  “Okay. Brace yourself.” I tap into my photos and scroll back through my albums. Then, I pass Bram the phone.

  His hand flies to his mouth.

  “Amazing, right?”

  Bram nods slowly. “Oh my God.”

  “So, this is seventh grade.”

  “I’m just.”

  “I know. Simon was too cute, right?”

  Bram stares at the photo, eyes crinkling around the edges, and something about his expression makes my heart twist.

  I mean, he’s so far gone. This kid is in it with his whole entire heart.

  The picture is actually of all three of us—Simon, Nick, and me. I think we were at Morgan’s bat mitzvah. I’m wearing this light blue dress, kind of an Eliza Hamilton vibe. I’m holding an inflatable saxophone, smiling, and Nick’s wearing oversized sunglasses. But the star of the picture is Simon. My God.

  For one thing, there’s that glow-in-the-dark tie Simon used to wear to every bar mitzvah and dance. But this time, he’s wearing it around his head like Rambo, cheesing for the camera. Also, he’s fucking tiny. I don’t know how I forgot that. He grew a few inches in eighth grade, and that’s about when he started listening to good music and not wearing those giant wolf face T-shirts. Like, I’m pretty sure he stripped off that final wolf shirt one day, and then Bram moved to Shady Creek two hours later.

  “You’ve never seen his baby pictures?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen the little kid ones, but he’s got middle school locked down.”

  “What you’re telling me is that Simon should never have left us alone together.”

  “Exactly.” He grins, tapping into his text messages.

  Moments later, our phones buzz simultaneously. You showed him the tie? LEAH, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

  It was a dapper tie, Bram writes.

  Well I was a dapper young man, BUT STILL

  Should I tell Bram about the night-light? I type.

  Bram smiles. “The night-light?”

  IT WAS AN ALARM CLOCK. It just happened to have a light.

  “It was a night-light.” I grin at Bram. “It had a little crescent moon and a mouse on it. He probably still has it.”

  “That is really cute and not at all surprising.”

  “Right? He kept it by his bed until eighth grade.”

  Bram laughs. Then he types something, taps send, and scoots his feet back to the curb.

  Except the message never appears. So, it’s a private text to Simon. To his boyfriend. Totally allowed. And I probably shouldn’t feel like I’ve been voted off some island.

  Mom pulls up to the curb a few minutes later, rolling down the window and waving.

  “That’s your mom?” Bram asks. “Wow. She’s really pretty.”

  “Yeah, I hear that a lot.” No joke: Simon once called her the quintessential sexy mom. “Are you sure you don’t want us to wait with you?” I ask.

  “Oh no. My dad will be here any second.”

  My mom leans out the window. “Hi! You’re Bram, right? The soccer player?”

  Bram looks taken aback. “Oh. Yes.”

  “And you’re going to Columbia.”

  God. She always does this. She whips out these little snippets of random information, just to show off what an Involved Mom she is. My friends probably think I go home and quiz her about them with flash cards.

  I mean, I do sort of tell my mom everything, to a degree that’s almost pathological. I keep her posted on all the Tumblr gossip, and I tell her about most of my crushes. And of course I told my mom I’m bisexual, even though none of my friends know. I came out to her when I was eleven, during a commercial break for Celebrity Rehab.

  Anyway, either Bram is a saint, or he’s hardcore sucking up to Mom. He calls her Ms. Keane, which is actually pretty impressive. No one ever remembers that my mom and I have different last names.

  My mom laughs. “You are so sweet. Seriously, call me Jessica.” I can already predict our conversation for the ride home. Oh God, Lee! He’s totally adorable. Simon must be head over heels. What a cutie pie. Blah blah blah.

  I know I’m lucky. You always hear about parents who disapprove of their kids’ friends, and my mom’s the exact opposite. She adores every single friend I’ve ever introduced. She even loved Martin Addison the few times she met him. And, of course, my friends are totally charmed by her. Case in point: by the time I click my seat belt, Bram’s already invited Mom to opening night of the play. Because that’s not weird.

  “I still think you should have auditioned, Lee,” Mom says as we pull onto the main road. “Joseph is the bomb.”

  “Don’t say the bomb.”

  “Joseph is the blizz.”

  I won’t even dignify it with a response.

  4

  “THIS CAME FOR YOU,” MOM says, handing me an envelope as soon I come down for breakfast on Thursday.

  It’s from the University of Georgia—the return address is printed with their logo. It’s not a big envelope like my admissions packet. Just a random letter-sized envelope, the perfect size for a letter from the dean retracting my scholarship and reversing my acceptance. We are writing to notify you that your acceptance to the University of Georgia Honors Program was, in fact, a clerical error. Our records show that our department intended to admit some other Leah Burke who isn’t a steaming hot mess. We apologize for any inconvenience.

  “Are you going to open it?” Mom asks, leaning against the counter. She’s wearing eye makeup, like she does for work sometimes, and she looks obnoxiously beautiful. Her eyes look electric green. I should say, for the record, that having a mother who’s hotter than you sucks balls.

  I take a deep breath and open it. Mom peers at me while I read. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, totally.” I feel myself relax. “It’s just a bunch of info about tours and accepted students day.”

  “We should probably do that, huh?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I mean, it can’t matter. Bec
ause my mom isn’t Simon’s mom or Nick’s mom. She can’t randomly take off work for a campus visit. I can’t even picture my mom on one of those tours. I’ve never actually been on one, but Simon says it’s just a flock of mortified kids cringing while their parents ask questions. Apparently, Simon’s dad asked the tour guide at Duke to “please elaborate on the campus gay scene.”

  “I wanted to fucking die,” Simon told me.

  Pretty sure if my mom were on that tour, she’d be snickering in the back, rolling her eyes at all the other parents. She’d probably get hit on by frat dudes, too.

  “Seriously, it’s fine.”

  She smiles. “I really do think you should sign up for this, though. Let me just sort things out with work, and we can make a whole day of it. And actually, Wells has family in Athens, so—”

  I laugh incredulously. “I’m not doing my college tour with Wells.”

  She flicks my arm. “We can discuss this later. Do you want a yogurt?”

  “Yeah.” I scrape my hair back. “Anyway, I’ll just see when Morgan’s going. I can pretend to be a Hirsch.”

  “That’s an idea,” Mom says. “And you could wear a Tech jersey to mess with them.”

  “Totally, Mom. I’ll be so popular on campus.”

  My phone buzzes with a text from Simon. Fuck. My. Life. Leah. Oh God.

  “Okay, I better go,” Mom says, setting my yogurt down. “Have fun today.”

  I say good-bye to her and turn back to my phone. I can’t fuck your life, I’m monogamously fucking my own life.

  Okay, that’s funny, Simon writes, but seriously.

  What happened?

  Three dots.

  And then: My voice keeps cracking!

  What?

  When I sing.

  That’s really cute. Emoji with heart eyes. I take a bite of yogurt.

  LEAH, IT’S NOT CUTE. IT’S ALMOST OPENING NIGHT. THE SCHOOL PERFORMANCES ARE LIKE RIGHT NOW.

  I think you’re nervous

  YOUR nervous.

  *You’re. Holy shit I can’t believe I just did that. And I capitalized it, ugh, don’t tell Bram AHHHHHHHHHHHH FUCK I’M DONE