Being Friends with Boys

by Terra Elan McVoy

  To fill the room with something, I put in the new CD from Trip. How did I spend my afternoons, before? Before Lish came back from her summer with that slanty bob, and then school started and she was suddenly talking about her volleyball friends D’Shelle and Kiaya all the time and plans she never involved me in.

  It wasn’t that much of a surprise when Lish ditched me for real, actually. She’d been quiet on the drive to school for days, and had bailed on sleepover plans two weekends straight. When my phone trilled my ringtone for her that weekend, it was only so she could tell me her mom was uncomfortable with her driving so many people around, since she’d just had her license a few months. Lish didn’t even pretend not to still be driving Bronwyn to school, and I felt a small pang inside that I didn’t want to feel. The three of us had been talking about Lish getting her license (and her mom’s old convertible) since last October. We planned stops at the QT to get creamy cappuccinos, and blaring the music with the top down, even in winter. While she was talking, all I could think was how we’d yet to do anything like that.

  It’s not like she was mean. She was just—not the old Lish. I could’ve tried to argue with her or beg, but I know—better than anyone—that once someone’s made up her mind to leave you, there’s nothing you can do to make her stay.

  Not having any classes with Lish this year makes her even more invisible. But this whole semester has turned out weird, anyway. I don’t have classes with Abe or Trip, and just the one with Oliver, plus lunch. I don’t understand, exactly, how everyone’s kind of evaporated—not just Jilly, off at college. I mean, even if I do catch sight of Lish in the halls, it’s like she’s a different person. She’s got her equestrian boots and her skinny skinny jeans, her shiny hair. And then there’s me: twice as big as her, in my thrift-store pants; my untucked, unironed button-downs; my long, tangly hair. Sometimes she truly doesn’t even see me. It’s like a giant wall has been lowered down between us. We’re not, apparently, going to talk about it. There’s no crowbar to pry it up. I’m glad I have Trip, and the notebook, and band practice with Oliver, but now even that’s messed up.

  Before I can truly sink into despair about it, though, my phone chimes from the depths of my bag.

  I drop down on my bed to answer. “Usually, by this time of day, we’ve hung up the phone and moved to the computer.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Trip says. “But when I got home, Dad was all like, ‘Son, I feel like we haven’t spent enough time together lately. Here’s these flies I tied and these new rods, and what do you say we do some fishing?’”

  “Yeah, right. So then you reminded him you’re a vegetarian?”

  He tries to hide his chuckle from me. “Are you suggesting the love of my own father wouldn’t be enough to convert me to carnivore?”

  “Well, my love of chicken wings and cheeseburgers hasn’t seemed to convince you yet, so yeah, maybe.”

  He clears his throat. “Just giving you enough time to talk to Oliver.”

  “Oh. Well, that was thoughtful.”

  “So, did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then, so?”

  I am not sure what he’s asking me. “So, what?”

  “So, you going to abandon ship and form a band with me instead?”

  I laugh. “What, a band of one guy on guitar and a silent girl with a tambourine?”

  “Well, or a cowbell. And you sing, don’t you?”

  “No way. Not like that, anyway.” I shift down to the floor, put my back against the bed frame. “You’re going to be on your own, I’m afraid. At least while I’m busy trying to keep Sad Jackal afloat.”

  “Ah. Well, maybe I’ll take up needlepoint to pass the time. Let’s ponder that together, while I play you something.”

  This is my favorite part of our phone calls. Talking to Trip is great, but when we stop talking, stop thinking, and just listen, I feel really . . . connected. To him. And maybe even the rest of the world. Usually he picks the songs, but sometimes I’ll find something too. We turn up the stereo, put the phone on speaker, and then just sit there (or, often, in my case, lie there), not saying anything during the music. Thanks to Trip, I’ve discovered all kinds of cool bands and have a giant playlist full of all the stuff he’s given me.

  “Okay, ready,” I tell him when I’ve muted my own stereo and stretched out.

  “This one’s a good one.”

  I lie quiet, waiting. Soon the phone fills with simple drums, and then a strumming guitar and a bass line—repetitive, basic, sweet. The singer comes in, British and a little emo. But good. Full of a lot to feel. I focus on the words, and it sticks in me how sad it all sounds. Lost. And resigned, in a way. I’m listening to the way the drums are light but carrying everything, how the guitar provides the rhythm. I picture Oliver playing it—his eyes closed, his head slightly back. There’s a lull, and then things crescendo, driving you to the end, and the singer’s just repeating “It’s all mixed up” over and over until the song disappears.

  When it’s finished, I feel the way I often do after Trip plays something for me: inspired, open-eyed, and sad in a way I can’t quite explain. I say, quiet, “Oliver wants auditions this weekend.”

  There is barely a pause. But still there is one. “Well then, you’ll have to take notes. Tell me all the nasty details.”

  “You better not hog the notebook all weekend like you usually do, then.”

  “I could give it to you on Friday night. If you come help me spend some Scoutmob Dad got for a Mexican place in Little Five.”

  I smile. “Nachos sound like a fair exchange for spying on your former band.”

  “You’re so easy. You didn’t even let me get to the part about Zesto after.”

  “Damn!” I pound my fist on my thigh. “I knew I should’ve held out for more!”

  “Yeah, well. Lesson learned. I’d better go, though. Shipshape around here before dinner and all that.”

  “Yeah, go shine those shoes of yours,” I tease. “I couldn’t see my face in them this morning. I would’ve said, but—”

  “So kind to me, as usual. But—” His voice switches to serious. “Lemme know if you ever want to play sometime, really. We could be good, you and me.”

  No way he honestly thinks this is a good idea. “I think my invisible-songwriter act suits me better.”

  “Going to have to work on my bribery skills a little more, I guess.”

  “More than a Zesto cone, that’s for sure.”

  We laugh and click off.

  I stare at the clock. Hannah won’t be home for another hour and a half, Dad maybe not until seven. Because of Dad’s massage therapy schedule, Hannah says we have no excuse for not getting a good handle on most of our homework before dinner. Sometimes I regret telling her, when she and Dad got the house, that it was kind of nice, having a stepmom with some rules.

  I turn the volume back up on Trip’s CD. I wonder if Jilly’s doing homework now, what she’s listening to, what kind of books she has to read. I postpone homework a little longer to give her a call, but her voice mail right away means her phone is off. She could be in class or studying in the library, maybe. Possibly she’s already at dinner or coffee with her suitemates, or in chorus rehearsal. When Dad and I visited campus with her last spring, I was amazed how big everything was, how much there was to do. Jilly could be anywhere right now. It’s unsettling not being able to picture her, not having her in my face all the time. I put homework in my face instead.

  When Dad gets home from his last client, he and I go grocery shopping. Hannah’s making Italian tonight, which means she needs—on top of other things—one of the baguettes they bake fresh at Your Dekalb Farmers Market. It also means Dad and I buy another one for us to eat in the car on the way home.

  Chewing the soft bread, Dad asks, “You girls have fun this afternoon?”

  I snort. “What? Listening to Darby’s whining and Gretchen fighting with the Wrestler? Not really.”

  “No, I meant Lish. Bronwyn
. Joyriding around town, waving to boys and all those other things I don’t want to know about.”

  His attempt at Hey I’m a Cool Dad is irritating. “Why’d you ask, then?”

  “Um. Because I want all my insecurities reassured that even if you’re doing things I don’t want you to be doing, you’ll tell me instead of making me find out about it in a police blotter?”

  He’s kidding. Sort of.

  “Lish has practice,” is all I say about that.

  “The band is good, yeah?” He tries again. “Oliver seems to be doing a great job of promoting it.”

  Dad is one of Oliver’s friends on Facebook, which is how he knows anything about the band.

  I rip a big piece off the baguette, to keep him from eating all of it.

  “It’s pretty good, I guess. I think we’re going to get some new members.”

  “You still writing lyrics?”

  I forgot I told him about that. “Yeah.”

  He nods, swallowing. “Good for you. And them.”

  When we arrive home, we just sit in the driveway with the engine off.

  We finish the baguette, staring at the house. Looking at it, I picture some of the loud (in a good way), tangled-up-energy moments that have gone on inside with Hannah and Gretchen and Darby lately. Underneath those are dreamier, farther-away memories from our old place—with Mom.

  “What are you thinking about?” He is looking at me now.

  “I was thinking how nice our house looks from the outside. How it seems like, I don’t know, a place with a real family.”

  His face is soft. “I’m glad you think that now.”

  There are a lot of things I could say. I don’t.

  He pats my knee, then wads up the plastic bread bag and shoves it under the driver’s seat. “All righty, then. Thanks for coming with me.”

  I shrug, pleased. “The grocery store is our thing.”

  I miss Jilly again. But it’s not like I can leave a second message, especially not a lame one that goes: Dad and I went shopping and it made me wish you were home.

  Dad is clearly also debating whether or not to say the embarrassingly mushy thing that just occurred to him, so I reach for the door handle, push my way out.

  “I’ll get the bags, you get the door,” I tell him, starting to unload without waiting for his answer.

  Chapter Two

  Wednesday morning, I take the finished copies of the Sad Jackal audition flyer with me to school. I’m armed with my roll of masking tape, to aim for the most prominent bulletin boards on campus, once Oliver gives the final okay.

  Even though he sees me coming in the parking lot—and he knows what’s in my satchel—I still have to wait for Oliver to unwind himself from Whitney’s arms and tell Abe and the other guys surrounding him to hang on a minute, before he moves in my direction. Some new girl I think Abe’s into is looking at me with this What are you doing here? face, so I just stand in the way I’m used to standing around the guys: letting their dimwit girlfriend-hopefuls know that I belong here more than they do.

  Finally Oliver’s there, hand extended. “Lemme see.”

  I try to hold the flyers so no one else can look. The picture is a vintage-looking piglet band standing on two legs and playing their instruments, with Oliver’s and Abe’s faces pasted over two of the pigs and big question marks over the others. It looks decent, even though it was tough to Photoshop everything to keep the ears showing. Oliver and I both thought the whole thing should be almost a little uncool, because if it was too cool then we’d have people who thought they were way too cool trying out. At the bottom it says, Experienced bassist. Synth. There are hang-down tags with the band’s generic email address (which mostly I check) and the date of auditions—two and a half days from now—for people to tear off and take with.

  Trying to read Oliver’s face, I see Trip heading over from Chris Monroe’s car.

  “Are these them?” Trip asks us both, sounding excited. Too excited. That he was hanging out with Chris, instead of here with Oliver, is bizarre, but I don’t mention it. Oliver flicks a slightly annoyed glance at me, and I return it before I realize I don’t know why Trip’s presence should be annoying at all.

  But Trip doesn’t notice. He takes one of the flyers, reviews it without saying anything. His eyes glimmer with disappointment and some kind of weird vindictive pride at the same time.

  “What?” I don’t want to be defensive, but I do want him to like it.

  “Nothing.” He shrugs, but he still has that look on his face.

  “We wanted it to be weird,” I rush, hearing a “we” coming from my mouth that means “me and Oliver” instead of “me and you.”

  “Well, congrats,” Trip says after a beat. “It’s . . . cute.” To Oliver he says, “You see Simon’s post last night?”

  Oliver nods and wraps his arm around Whitney, who has sidled up to him from nowhere—not liking it, I suppose, that he was away from her for a full two minutes.

  “Cool.” Trip looks at them, then me.

  Why is this awkward all of a sudden? Oliver should be joking and talking and tied up in Trip’s opinion just like before. I shouldn’t be feeling like a wonky but necessary third wheel, the one keeping the tricycle from propelling itself into oncoming traffic.

  “I’m going to put these up.” I lift the envelope, show my roll of tape.

  “Good work, Spider,” Oliver says after me. As I turn to say thanks, I catch Trip watching, and he doesn’t look pleased. I almost ask does he want to come help me, but asking him to participate in his own replacement would just be weird.

  I get four flyers hung up—the crucial one near the band hall, and three others in strategic places by the cafeteria and the library—before the bell rings. I’ll do the rest later. And check back on these to see if anyone’s pulled off a tab.

  Walking with Trip between first and second periods is a little more normal than the parking lot scenario. Apparently two seconds after I left, Whitney was all “What’s up with that?” about the flyers, because Oliver hadn’t told her about the auditions at all.

  “Five-minute tirade about his lack of communication and respect.” Trip’s giddy, describing it. “Finger in his face and everything.”

  I groan. “Could he please go ahead and dump her?”

  Oliver and Whitney have been going out since the party Sad Jackal played in July, and Trip and I really hoped the start of school would break them up. As an outlet for our Whitney disdain, we have written out several little scenarios in the notebook, all of them involving Oliver dumping Whitney in dastardly and creative ways. My favorite depicts Oliver rowing Whitney out to an island, abandoning her there, and tossing out bottles with messages that say NOT EVEN IF WE WERE STRANDED ON A DESERT ISLAND into the boat’s wake.

  “She does have a great rack, though,” Trip says. “You can’t argue.”

  I swat him on the arm. “Annoying much?”

  He shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

  “Okay, well.” We are at my math class. I hold up the notebook he just handed me. “I’ll return it before lunch?”

  “Duh.”

  I watch him walk away. He must know that I do this now, because today he turns and gives me a wave before he disappears around the corner.

  When I’m able to read the notebook, though, I discover that as soon as his dad heard Trip wasn’t doing Sad Jackal anymore, he started pushing Trip extra hard about joining a sports team again, or else the martial arts stuff his dad’s obsessed with. And it sounds like Trip’s actually considering it: The thing is, after dinner I was laying there listening to music (too late to call you, sorry), and I remembered hearing that when your body’s engaged in one mindless activity, it leaves the creative part free to create.

  I’m still working on my response to him in 20th Cen. As soon as Dr. Campbell turns out the lights for the overhead projector and his eighteen-year-old notes (which he expects us to copy and memorize whether he actually lectures on them or not), the guy i
n front of me, Benji, turns around and whispers, “That’s not history, is it?”

  “None of your business,” I hiss at him, indicating he should turn around and focus, which I should be doing too. We had our first test last Friday, a take-home. But Campbell managed to make it hard as hell, and I know I’ll be lucky if I get a C+.

  Still, I want to finish my response to Trip in time for our switch-off.

  Learning ninja skills is possibly cool, I write, but then I hesitate. I want to be encouraging. I do. But Trip’s dad is militant about Trip conforming to his hard-core ideals. He wants a machine, not a musician. That Trip is even considering his dad’s suggestions now, especially after all the fighting they did over the summer about the band, well—it’s a little disconcerting.

  I just want to protect that musical genius I admire so much, I write.

  I’m debating telling him I’m worried that our busy schedules might make it harder for us to hang out, when Benji, in his ohso-not-subtleness, reaches over his shoulder and drops a messily folded note on my desk. We should team up for these tests. You up for it?

  I look down at my two notebooks: one a distracted hodgepodge of history, one a distracted, still not fully articulated mess about—whatever. I picture my report card, probably coming up before I know it.

  Sure. I write back. When. Where?

  After class, Benji bolts from his desk, but then waits for me outside the portable building and takes my arm like we’re at the opera.

  “You mean it?” he says.

  “Sure, Benj.”

  “Okay, well. I can’t truly hang until four or something this afternoon. Detention.”

  “You have detention already?” I unhook my arm from his. It feels weird being that close to him.

  He shrugs.

  “Okay, so, fine,” I say. “But are you really taking notes in class or not? You’re not getting me to do all the work.”