Grace and the Fever

by Zan Romanoff

  “So they need it. For it to be over.”

  “They do.” Grace’s voice catches on a sob. “I hate it, though. I feel so selfish. But I hate it.”

  “It’s awful,” Katy says. “You don’t know when they’re going to announce?”

  “Nope. No one from their camp is really talking to me anymore. Raj just wanted to—he wanted me to know what I’d done. All of it. When I started telling their secrets.”

  “So why are you telling me this one, then?”

  It’s Grace’s turn to be quiet. She puts her head between her knees and cries there for a little while, every crappy thing she’s felt all summer breaking up in her chest and turning into salt water and snot. It’s kind of a relief to just let it all out of her, even if it’s ugly and messy and embarrassing.

  “Because you’re the only person who knows how I feel about it,” she says. “Who really, really knows. I realize it’s not fair to put it on you. To ask you for anything. I just feel like there’s no one I can talk to anymore. My friends here don’t really care. I don’t even know if we are friends, anymore. Fandom is done with me. And Jes—”

  “Was that stuff true? About you guys?”

  “Sort of. Yeah. I mean, we were. We did. Kind of. Get involved.”

  “Oh my god, Grace!”

  “It didn’t all suck, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I bet it didn’t.”

  “I can tell you about it,” Grace says. “At some point. If you want.”

  “You know me. I do love a good story.”

  Grace puts her phone down so that she can wipe the tears off her face, and blow her nose. She picks it back up again to ask, “So what happens now?”

  “To you? God, I don’t know. Will you ever be able to look at any other guy, do you think?”

  “No, that’s not—” Grace says. “I mean, um. To the fandom.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I forget, sometimes, that this is your first.”

  “I can’t imagine having another one.”

  Grace can almost hear Katy shrugging. “I couldn’t either, until I did. Some people will stick around longer than others. Everyone will drift off to something new eventually. If you stick around, you’ll run into people years from now and recognize their username, and say, Wait a minute, didn’t you write that classic Lolly fic? or whatever. And they’ll be like, Oh my god, I can’t believe you remember that. That’s the good news: the content changes, but there’s always, like, fic, and vids, and wank. God, there’s always wank, trust me. The community is real. The way we are together. That stuff is eternal.”

  Grace tries to imagine loving anything as much as she’s loved Fever Dream, and it just seems bizarre and impossible. Each of their albums marks a year of her high school career; their music is the soundtrack to so much of her growing up. The community she found who loved them alongside her were the first people she ever felt really got her, all of her, her weirdest, most misfit-y parts.

  Does that mean giving fandom up forever, then?

  “I thought it would feel like a relief if I could ever get out of it,” she tells Katy. “When I was in it, I just wanted to be normal. And now I want it all back again.”

  “Ugh,” Katy says. “Normal. That’s so— People are so dumb about fandom. Because, like, it’s a culture, you know? I think that’s why it seems so especially stupid when people insist on taking it out of context. Because if you just have some actor reading fic on a talk show, or looking at fan art, it’s like, it’s like looking at hieroglyphics and trying to translate that into an Egyptian dance party or something. It just doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean when you isolate it and extract it and put it up on a slide like that. It is normal. Or as normal as anything ever is.”

  “Yeah. Well. I figured that out too late. And now I miss it.”

  Katy sighs. “It misses you,” she says. “Or. Um. I do.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. Obviously.” Grace pauses. “Thanks for calling me.”

  “Yeah, well. I just wanted to ask my nosy questions. Do you miss Jes? And the rest of them?”

  “I don’t think I knew Jes,” Grace says.

  “You don’t have to know someone to miss them.”

  Grace doesn’t usually disagree with Katy. It takes her a minute to sort out what she’s going to say. “No. I mean, I guess not. But with them—I miss the idea of them more than I miss actually hanging out with them, I think. I mean Jes was—we had—I don’t know what it was. It could have been something, maybe. But mostly I miss the promise that there was someone, and he was going to change my life. That promise, that possibility. With you it’s—I know what I miss. I could name it. What I wanted to talk about when we weren’t talking.”

  “You can,” Katy says. “Talk to me, I mean. You’ve already got me on the line. So. Whatever. You might as well go ahead.”

  —

  That night, Grace goes up to her mother’s room after dinner. She can’t decide whether she’s really going to say anything until she’s already shadowing the doorway. Her mom is in her pajamas, sitting on the edge of her bed, reading.

  It’s easier to talk to her when she doesn’t have her lawyer costume on, at least.

  “Hey, Mom,” Grace says.

  Her mother puts her magazine aside and doesn’t say anything.

  “I was thinking about going to get some sheets and stuff this weekend. You know. For school. And you don’t have to—if you’re busy, or if you just—but I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

  “You don’t have to spend the day with me if you don’t want to.”

  “That’s not what I said!” Grace takes a deep breath and forces herself to be calm before she clarifies. “You don’t have to spend the day with me if you don’t want to. I can do the shopping on my own. I just thought it might be nice if we hung out before I left.”

  “Oh,” her mom says.

  Her mom takes Friday morning off from work so they can go when the stores will be quieter. Grace assumes that it’s just going to be a shopping trip, in and out, there and back, but when she comes down to make breakfast that morning, her mother surprises her by proposing pancakes at Frankie’s. It’s nothing too fancy—a local diner—but it’s where her mother took her for birthdays when she was younger. It’s always been their special place.

  Grace picks out a table next to one of the big windows where sunshine is pouring in, just hot enough against the chilly gusts of the AC. The sky overhead is endless and empty, a zillion acres of flat, cloudless blue.

  “College,” her mother says. “Do you feel old yet?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Too old to be having lunch with your mom, I bet.”

  “Stop,” Grace says. She doesn’t mean to pick a fight first thing, but her mother brings it out in her. “Please don’t—I’m trying here, okay? This is me trying. Don’t make me feel bad about it.”

  “Is that what you think this is?”

  “I don’t know!” Grace looks down at the napkin in her lap. She’s definitely too old to cry in public.

  “Grace, you’ve never been easy to pin down, but you disappeared this summer. You lied to me about where you were going, and who with, and you got in all kinds of trouble. I don’t think I’m being unfair when I say I feel like I just don’t really know what you want these days. I certainly don’t know how to give it to you.”

  The waitress comes by and they each order a coffee. Grace pretends to scan the menu, but she’s going to get what she always gets. Her mother must know that, at least.

  She puts the menu aside and resists the urge to pull out her phone and ignore this entire conversation.

  “I just wanted something to happen to me,” she says at last. “Or because of me, I guess. Didn’t you ever love some band when you were my age? Or a movie star, or something? Imagine if he’d just showed up in your backyard, and said, Hey. Come hang out with me. What would you have done?”

  “That never would have happened to me.”

  “
Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would happen to me either. Until it did.”

  “No, I mean, I wouldn’t have— I didn’t love anything like that, when I was your age. Or ever. It just isn’t my style.”

  “Yeah, well, you saved yourself a lot of embarrassment, so. Not a bad style to have.”

  “Is that what you think of yourself, really?”

  “That I’m embarrassing?” Grace shrugs. “I mean, there are worse people to be, obviously. Worse daughters to have, I’d imagine. But I understand why it can be a lot for you to handle. Me. And all of this.”

  Her mother takes a deep breath. “You’re not too much for me,” she says. “And I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I really—I guess I haven’t been very good at this. At raising you.”

  “You were fine,” Grace says automatically. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. Growing up is hard enough. It helps if someone—gets you. Understands.”

  Grace remembers looking at her mother in the kitchen after she found out about her and Jes, and thinking how frustrating it was for the two of them to always be explaining themselves to each other. Now she says, “I mean, yeah, it would be nice if you always knew exactly what to do and say, Mom. Obviously. But it’s also nice to know that even if you don’t—even when it isn’t easy—that you’re willing to try. And keep trying. I see that. I appreciate it.” She pauses. “Now I do, anyway.”

  She isn’t sure it’s helpful—you tried can be such a weak platitude—but her mother’s face softens.

  “As long as you know that I am always trying my best,” she says.

  “As long as you know that I’m trying, too,” Grace replies.

  “Of course,” her mother says. “That’s— Let me tell you, I have never worried about you not trying hard enough, Grace. When was the last time you gave up on anything?”

  Grace lets this sink into her. It’s true that she’s a loyalist: still friends with her girlfriends from elementary school, still obsessed with the same band, still coming back again, trying to make this thing with her mother work just a little bit better.

  And she realizes that, in some ways, her mother does see her clearly. Maybe even, in a few instances, better than she can see herself.

  —

  This time, at Bed Bath & Beyond, Grace picks out a sheet set and a duvet cover and towels and a shower caddy. No one approaches her except to say, “Do you need help with anything?”

  Someone recognizes her in the checkout line, though. The girl behind them is probably fourteen, and embarrassed to be shopping with her dad. “Sorry,” she says. “But can I, like, get a picture with you?”

  “Who is she?” her dad asks.

  The girl turns neon and rolls her eyes apologetically at Grace. “Ugh, I’m sorry about him. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.”

  “I used to hang out with some guys in a band,” Grace tells the dad. He and her mother are sharing a sympathetic look.

  “You dated Jes Holloway,” the girl says.

  “You still, um. You believe that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? That whole mess where they, like, pretended that you were some crazy ’shipper was such a weak plot. Those girls are so nuts. They’ll say anything about anyone. I never buy their BS.”

  Grace can’t quite believe herself when she says, “No, actually, that part was all true. About me and the blog, and Solly and Land. That I believed in them, and everything.” The girl’s face drops. “Do you still want a picture?”

  “Of course,” she says.

  The girl introduces herself—her name is Whitney—and her dad snaps a few shots of them standing with their arms around each other in front of a wall of AS SEEN ON TV! products.

  Grace’s mom stands behind him, taking pictures of her daughter’s first fan photo.

  “It’s so random that you’re here,” Whitney says. “I can’t believe you’re just walking around like a normal person.”

  “I am a normal person,” Grace says.

  Whitney makes a face like, Would I have asked a normal person for a picture? And Grace gets what she means, but she also feels more normal than she has in weeks. Like this is just part of her life, now. Like she’s not going to break up, crack apart, and float away.

  “Are you going to post those online?” she asks.

  “Duh,” Whitney says. “What else would I do with them?”

  When the video starts, they’re already sitting at the table behind their microphones. They’re in some New York City ballroom with a plain white backdrop behind their heads: nothing to distract from their four solemn faces. Jes is wearing a button-down and a heavy watch. Land is dressed like he’s already on vacation. He barely remembers to take off his sunglasses.

  Even Rick is pale under his tan. “Jes is going to read a prepared statement, and then I will take questions on behalf of Rackwell & Hart and the band,” he says.

  Jes takes his place behind the podium. He stands to deliver the news.

  “The last four years have been extraordinary,” he says. “First of all, we have to thank everyone we’ve worked with—at Rackwell & Hart, and Elliptical, and at venues and stadiums all over the world. We’re so grateful for your enthusiasm and support. And as everyone knows, Fever Dream has been blessed with the best fans in the known universe.” He pauses, looks up, and smiles at the camera. It’s reflexive, at this point. Thank the fans. Look them in the eye.

  “Which is why this has been such a difficult decision for us. But we’ve come to a place in our lives and careers where the stress of recording and touring constantly is too overwhelming. We were very young when we got into this, and we need some time off to reevaluate who we are, and what we want. So we’re announcing today that the band is taking an indefinite hiatus.”

  They must have known it was coming, but still: there’s an audible gasp in the room, a quick suck of air, and then a tight, concentrated silence.

  “We’ll be releasing the songs we’ve recorded for the fifth album as an EP next month. I think Rick has more details about that.”

  Jes looks down the row of his bandmates.

  Land leans toward his mic first. “Thanks, guys,” he says. “For everything. We’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah,” Kendrick mumbles. “Thanks. We love you.”

  “We do,” Solly says. “We love you so much.”

  “We’ll miss you,” Jes says. He laughs, and turns to Rick, and says something the microphones don’t pick up.

  Girls all over the internet will spend the rest of the week trying to figure out what it is. Lip-readers will be consulted. Fans will get into a knock-down, drag-out digital brawl over whether it’s “Glad that’s over” or “God, that’s over.”

  Either way, Jes steps down from the microphone, and doesn’t step back up again.

  —

  “Are you really gonna watch this whole thing?” Allison asks. She and Grace are folded up on their futon, Grace’s laptop balanced precariously on a stack of books on their coffee table. It’s only mid-September, and already their room is a terrifying mess.

  On-screen, Rick is answering a question about contracts. “It’s just a boring Q&A. You know that dude isn’t going to give any real answers.”

  “Yeah,” Grace says.

  “Yeah, it’s boring?”

  “No, yeah, I’m staying.”

  “Even if I told you that I was going down the hall to Danny Temple’s room?”

  Grace hides her face in her hands. “Leave me alone about Danny Temple.”

  “Tell him to leave you alone,” Allison says. “C’mon. This is sad. It’s just going to make you sad. Act like a college student and come have a drink about it.” She holds up her hands. “One drink, I promise.”

  “I’ll come when it’s done,” Grace says. “I don’t think it’s going to go on much longer.”

  “Suit yourself,” Allison says. She pulls off the tank top she’s been wearing and roots through her closet for a minute.
“Can I borrow your green shirt again?”

  “It’s hanging up,” Grace says.

  She watches the screen intently: Jes’s familiar face, reduced to pixels again. His broad shoulders and sharp, narrow chin. He looks at the camera but not at her.

  She wonders if she’ll ever really see him again.

  Katy gets her through the first half of the semester. Allison is great, and Cara and Lianne are always only a text away, but they’re new at this, too, where Katy is full of invaluable wisdom: which classes will end up being cool and which ones only sound cool in theory, and what to drink so she won’t get wasted at parties, and what to do when, inevitably, she gets wasted at one and wakes up to the feeling of her skull trying to split itself open.

  Allison was into Fever Dream, like, kind of seriously into them, but she never found fandom. She considers Your Internet Friend Katy one of Grace’s benign eccentricities. The nice thing about college is that everyone is so busy that no one really seems to have time to care whether Grace is cool, or normal, unless she gets in their faces about it. Which, of course, she never, ever does.

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Katy asks on the phone one day in early October.

  “Staying in the dorms,” Grace says. “I could have flown home, I guess, but most of my friends from LA have short breaks, so they were staying at school, and—I don’t know—in August it seemed like the right thing to do? Apparently, the dining hall does turkey and whatever. So that should be…interesting.”

  “That does sound very enticing,” Katy says. “But if you want to do something that’s not, like, crushingly depressing, I’m stuck in the city as usual, and I’m organizing another Orphan Thanksgiving. I don’t know, I was thinking if you wanted to come hang IRL that might be cool.”

  “Might be,” Grace agrees.