Tell Me Three Things

by Julie Buxbaum

  “Of course you know,” he says, smiling right back at me.

  —

  An hour later, we’re still sitting here. This week’s assignment is long done—one page on T. S. Eliot’s repeated references to dirt—so now we’re just hanging out, chatting. Maybe becoming actual friends, not just study partners.

  “You never told me what you thought of Oville,” Ethan says after he has refilled his cup for the third time. He takes his coffee black. No fuss. Pure, unadulterated caffeine.

  “Seriously? You guys were amazing.” If I were Gem or Crystal, I’d probably be smart and play it cool. Not fangirl all over him. But whatever. They indisputably rocked. “You’re all really talented.”

  “I wish we could just play in my guesthouse, no shows at all, but apparently, it’s not up to me. That’s what we used to do before.” He says it like the “before” should be capitalized. Before and After.

  “Before what?”

  “Nothing. I mean before Liam joined. He’s all serious about launching a real music career, and I just want to play some music. Hang out.” Ethan stirs his coffee with a stick, a mindless habit since there’s nothing in there that needs mixing.

  “Do you get stage fright?” I ask.

  He pauses, as if I’m asking an important question that deserves a precise answer.

  “Nah, not exactly. I just feel, I don’t know, more alone when everyone is staring up at me. It’s…isolating, I guess. And tiring.”

  “I thought most performers feel the opposite. That it’s the only place they don’t feel alone,” I say. “Everyone wants to be the guy up onstage.”

  Ethan shrugs.

  “When I go to concerts, and it’s crowded and no one is bothering me, and it’s like, just me and the music…that’s when I don’t feel alone. I guess I’m not much of a people person,” he says.

  “Really? Tell that to everyone at Wood Valley,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  Does he not notice that every girl in school lusts after him? That people actually line up to talk to him?

  “Come on, it’s like you have a harem at lunchtime.” Again, I say too much. Seriously, I need lessons on how to flirt.

  “Nah. That has nothing to do with me. It’s because of…Never mind. Long story.”

  I want to say something like I have time, but I see how he is, that things are pretty straightforward: When he wants to talk, he talks. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. I don’t know him well enough yet to push.

  “Who writes your lyrics?” What I really want to know is who wrote “The Girl No One Knows,” but I don’t want to admit to knowing Oville’s entire playlist. Dri sent me all of their songs, but I keep listening to that one on repeat, my tally now so high I’d die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw it. At the store, Liam only sang the chorus, which is simple and catchy and misleading because the rest of the song is something altogether different. Brooding, beautiful, desperate.

  A poem, really. An elegy.

  “Depends on the song. Me, usually. Some Liam. Oh, and this guy Caleb, who’s not actually in the band but hangs around and pitches in.” My head shoots up. Caleb? Did he write “The Girl No One Knows”? If so, then it all makes sense. SN is the type to write song lyrics, haunting, melancholy ones, but not the type to get up onstage and sing them out loud. In front of people.

  “Caleb’s the tall guy, right?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “Not really. Sort of. Met him the other day at work.”

  “Yeah, he and Liam are tight.” I guess Ethan knows I work at Liam’s mom’s store. I must have told him last week when I mentioned knowing Liam. Or did Liam mention it? Oh shit. Have they talked about me? My palms start to sweat: I picture Ethan and Liam laughing about how I made it seem like Liam and I are close friends.

  Is that why Gem called me a skank? Does everyone think I’m obsessed with Liam? Does Liam? Does Ethan? Does Caleb?

  “You think I’ll ever figure this school out?” I ask Ethan. It’s frustrating how everyone knows each other. My closest friend here is SN—or should I just call him Caleb?—and our relationship consists solely of text messages. I need to hire Dri to give me a full background on everyone so I can stop stepping in it.

  “Nope,” Ethan says. “I haven’t, and I’ve been here since kindergarten. But you know what I did figure out?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Nope. Not even a little bit.”

  “Really?” I now stir my latte, which is finished, which means I’m stirring an empty cup. I need to keep my hands busy. The desire to touch Ethan’s hair, even his hands, has become borderline uncontrollable. I want to bite his earlobe, which looks like it once housed an ill-advised earring. I want to ask him how he can run so hot and so cold, how right now he can be so reassuring, almost a real friend, and at the party, I wasn’t worth enough of his time to stop and say more than that one syllable, that dismissive “hey.”

  “Yup. Who cares about all these assholes? A few of them are great people, the vast majority are not, and at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself. If they don’t like you, screw ’em.”

  “Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”

  “Right. Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”

  Fine, I’ll admit it: I’m sad when Ethan stops saying my name.

  —

  Home. Or, more accurately, the place I eat and sleep. Under the dome: chicken Marbella or marsala or something with an “M,” spears of asparagus, a dollop of wild rice.

  SN: your day? go.

  Me: great, actually. yours?

  SN: memorable.

  I only saw Caleb once today. He was leaning against a locker in the hall at school, and when he saw me, he saluted me with his cell phone and then whispered something to the guy standing next to him, a senior who has the feltlike complexion of a Muppet. I assume his cell salute meant something like Let’s keep talking with our phones, not in person, since there’s been no attempt to make my suggestion of a date a reality. But thirty seconds later, my IM dinged.

  SN: three things. (1) Hendrix was the most amazing guitarist who ever lived. even better than Jimmy Page. (2) sometimes when I listen to music, I actually feel lighter. (3) and sometimes when I play Xbox, I feel nothing.

  Me: Which do you like better? Music or Xbox?

  SN: ahh, that’s a good question. no doubt my mom’s medicine cabinet is like her Xbox, right? so I’m going to say music, because there’s nothing scarier to me than becoming my mother.

  SN: but truthfully?

  SN: Xbox.

  I think it’s becoming clear Caleb and I will never actually chat over hot beverages, never say out loud that SN is Caleb and Caleb is SN, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe we’ve said too many scary things online already, and knowing what we’ve already shared, all that honesty, makes talking in person impossible.

  Still, it’s sad, because I’m starting to appreciate his particular brand of hotness. Sitting across from him wouldn’t be distracting the way it is with Ethan. He’s a blanker, simpler, well-balanced canvas. Like Rachel’s white-on-white walls.

  Me: Your day was memorable? Memorable=good? Or memorable=bad?

  SN: good. what was under the dome tonight?

  Me: Fancy-pants chicken. And you? Please tell me not Whole Foods sushi again? I’m starting to worry about you getting mercury poisoning.

  SN: my mom cooked, actually, which, as you know, is weird. it was good, though. homemade mac ’n’ cheese. my favorite when I was a kid. I guess still my favorite.

  Me: That’s sweet of her.

  SN: yeah, it felt like an apology. like she knows she’s been…absent.

  Me: Did she seem, you know, clear?

  SN: hard to tell, but yeah. i’m allowing myself to think so. at least for tonight.

  Me: Good.

  SN: then again, do you know what’s the number one sign of mercury poisoning?

  Me: What?


  SN: optimism.

  —

  That night, I dream about Ethan and Caleb, both of them in my room and perched on my day bed, except they’ve switched T-shirts. Ethan wears gray, and Caleb wears Batman, and neither of them talks to me. Caleb plays with his phone, texting someone else—maybe me, but not the me in this room—and Ethan strums his guitar, lost in some complicated finger work, lost in the way that happens when he looks out the library window. I sit behind them, quiet, just watching and admiring the backs of their very different necks, trying not to be bothered by the fact that they don’t even realize I’m right here.

  CHAPTER 21

  “What do you guys think about me getting a pink stripe? Like just slightly off center?” Dri asks, and runs her fingers through her unruly brown hair. We are sitting outside during our free period, our faces tilted up toward the sun like hungry cartoon flowers. I now have sunglasses—Dri and Agnes helped me pick out a knockoff pair—and I love them. They feel transformative, like I’m somehow a different person with large squares of plastic covering my face.

  “Pink?” Agnes asks.

  “Pink with an exclamation point instead of an ‘i,’ pink?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” Dri says. “Either. Both.”

  “No.” Agnes says it straight out, no attempt to preserve the possibility. Pure veto, which is exactly what Scarlett did when I suggested getting my inner ear flab pierced. Well, after she told me to Google what that part of the body is actually called, because she never wanted to hear the words “my inner ear flab” together in a sentence again. Can’t say I blamed her.

  Turns out it’s called your tragus, which sounds vaguely dirty. No one should have their tragus pierced.

  “How about all pink?” Dri asks. “Dye my whole head.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I like your hair the way it is.”

  “Why? Why would you do that to yourself?” Agnes asks, though neither Dri nor I have the nerve to point out that Agnes’s red hair is as artificial as Dri’s would be if she were to dye hers pink. Then again, Agnes’s red somehow works in a way that I don’t think Dri’s pink would. Not a fine line between red and pink when we are talking hair.

  “I just want a change,” she says.

  “This is like the ukulele. You just want to be noticed,” Agnes says, blunt but not unkind. “I get it.”

  “I feel…I don’t know, sort of invisible these days. Like, you know, except for you guys, no one would notice if I didn’t even go to this school,” Dri says, and leans back so that she’s lying down, staring up at the vast blue sky, so open there aren’t even clouds to read. I consider telling her that SN told me to befriend her, that he obviously has noticed how cool and funny she is, but for some reason, I’m embarrassed. I want her to think our friendship was totally organic.

  “Honestly, I’d kill to be invisible,” I say. “Gem and Crystal won’t leave me alone.”

  “Screw them,” Agnes says. “They just wish they could be as cool as you.”

  “I am not cool. I am the opposite of cool,” I say.

  “You are cool. I mean, now that I know you, I realize you’re actually something better than cool. But you somehow give off this badass, above-it-all vibe. And you’re hot,” Agnes says. “In Gem’s world, no one else is allowed to be hot.”

  “Seriously? Who are you even talking about right now?” I ask.

  “They’re just jealous because Liam likes you. Honestly? I’m jealous because Liam likes you,” Dri says.

  “Liam doesn’t like me,” I say. “I just work at his mom’s store.”

  “Whatever,” Dri says.

  “No, seriously, we’re just coworkers. And for the record, I don’t like him. Not in that way, at least.” I hope Dri believes me. I need her to believe me.

  “Then you’re crazy,” she says. “Because he’s smokin’.”

  “Please do not get a pink stripe because of Liam Sandler,” Agnes says. “He’s not worth it.”

  I spot Ethan crossing the lawn, coffee in hand, heading to the parking lot, even though it’s only noon. And just like every other time I’ve seen him like this, what I think of as out in the wild, I feel like I have managed to conjure him up, as if he has appeared only because I’m thinking about him. Which I was, since I pretty much think about him all the time. I can be talking pink hair or Liam Sandler, but what I’m really thinking is Ethan is Ethan is Ethan.

  I wonder where he’s going and whether he’ll be back in time for English. I hope so. We don’t talk to each other much in school, but I like knowing he’s behind me, that I could turn around and smile if I had the nerve. Not that I’ve ever actually had the nerve.

  Crap. He catches me watching him. I hope I’m far enough away that he can’t see the goofy grin. He throws me a fast peace sign before beeping his way into his car.

  “Now, Ethan Marks, on the other hand,” I say, finally confessing my crush to my friends. I’ve told Scarlett, of course, but she hasn’t gone to school with him since kindergarten, so it didn’t really count.

  Should I have peace-signed Ethan back? No, I can’t pull off a peace sign. It’s a lot like “cool beans.”

  “Really? You like Ethan! We used to be friends back in junior high,” Dri squeals, and sits up to grab my hands, all girlie enthusiasm. Or maybe she’s just relieved that I don’t want Liam. She cocks her head, reconsidering. “Though, let’s be honest: he’s not the most original choice. And—”

  “And he’s kind of damaged,” Agnes says.

  “And he’s never dated anyone at school. Never. Ever,” Dri says, and my heart sinks a little. Not that I thought I had a chance, but still. Now it feels like a technical impossibility.

  “But he’s totally a panty dropper,” Agnes says. “No doubt about that.”

  SN: three things. (1) when I read your messages, I hear them in your voice. (2) if I were an animal, I’d be a lemur. okay, that’s probably not true, but I felt like using the word “lemur” today. and before you say it…yes, I know I’m weird. (3) seriously? I’d like to be a chameleon. change my colors to match my environment.

  Me: (1) I’ve watched Footloose (the remake, not the original) an embarrassing number of times. But it’s so moving. A LAW AGAINST DANCING. And they fight and win. Swoon. (2) I could be a better driver. The whole turn left when the light turns red thing here freaks me out. (3) Just so you know, I take back coffee.

  SN: okay, no sugar for you.

  Me: What?

  SN: a joke. a Seinfeld reference.

  Me: It’s not funny.

  SN: it’s just coffee. relax.

  Me: Fine.

  SN: sorry, forgot how mad you get when I tell you to relax.

  Me: I don’t get mad.

  SN: you’re mad right now. I can hear it in your virtual voice.

  Me: When you tell someone to relax, it suggests that you think they are overly uptight. I’m not being overly uptight.

  SN: wow. that’s putting a lot of pressure on my “relax.” I just meant chill. or no biggie. you forget I’m from Cali. we say shit like that here.

  Me: Namaste.

  SN: ah, now you’re getting the hang of it. now stop writing me and get to class. you’re going to be late.

  “Slut,” Gem fake-sneezes as I make my way into English. SN is right, I’m late, and now everyone is here, laptops already open, watching me get serenaded with profanity and germs as I walk to my seat.

  “Whore,” she sneezes again, though not sure why she needs the elaborate cover-up. We can all hear her, even, I’m sure, Mrs. Pollack. “Fat ugly bitch.”

  Just pretend you’re wearing Theo’s noise-canceling headphones. That you don’t see Crystal or Dri or even Theo watching. No, do not look up, do not see that Ethan is here too, back from wherever he went, his eyes following you, blazing with what looks like pity.

  Nothing worse than pity.

  Almost there. Just need to pass Gem. I can do this.

  But I can’t. Because next thing I know, my n
ose hits the desk with a loud crack, and I’m splayed on the floor: a belly flop on the linoleum. My head now an inch from Ethan’s Converse.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. I don’t answer, because I don’t know. I am on the ground, my face aches, so much worse than when Liam hit me with his guitar case, and the whole class is looking at me. Gem and Crystal are openly laughing—cackling like Disney witches—and I’m too afraid to stand up. I can’t tell if my nose is bleeding, if right now I am lying in a pool of my own blood at Ethan’s feet. I do know that my ass is spread across the floor like a smear of butter, at an angle no one should ever be exposed to, especially someone like Ethan.

  Thank God it hurts. It helps keep me from feeling the humiliation.

  Gem stuck out her foot. Of course she did. I’m so stupid, I deserve to be here smelling the floor.

  Ethan squats down, holds out his hand to help me up. I take a deep breath. The quicker I get up, the quicker this will all be over. I ignore Ethan’s hand—I can think of nothing worse than wiping my blood on him, nothing worse than this being the very first time we touch—and so I steady myself with the reliable floor. Slowly make my way to sitting, then to standing, and like the fatuglybitch I am, I shift my bulk into my seat. Nothing graceful about it.

  “Am I bleeding?” I whisper to Dri. She shakes her head, the shocked look on her face telling me that what just happened is as bad, as embarrassing as I imagine. No. Even worse.

  “Do you need to go to the nurse?” Mrs. Pollack asks, almost in a whisper, as if she doesn’t want to attract any extra attention to me.

  “No,” I say, even though I’d give anything for an ice pack and an Advil. I just can’t imagine standing up again, walking past Gem and then down the hall. Hearing the laughter at my back as soon as the door to the classroom closes. No thank you.

  “All right, then, back to Crime and Punishment,” Mrs. Pollack says, and redirects the class. I feel Ethan behind me, though, and I can’t turn, can’t even utter a pathetic thank you, because I’m scared of what my face looks like, and I’m scared I’m going to cry.