Tell Me Three Things

by Julie Buxbaum

  “Of course I’ve been listening.”

  Me: Sorry about last night. Wasn’t myself. Long story. But yes…let’s meet. I think it’s time.

  SN: it’s definitely, unequivocally time.

  CHAPTER 29

  “You know what’s weird? There are a ton of randos at school. SN could be anyone. I mean, he could be that guy Ken Abernathy, who, like, has a real farting issue. I mean, it’s sad. He could even be Mr. Shackleman!” Scar and I are driving around. No destination in mind. Just looping the streets because they’re familiar. Unlike my former classmates, the surroundings here look the same as before: the trees may be naked, but they’re naked in the same way they were last fall and the one before that. Even my house looks almost exactly the way I remember it, even though it’s been overtaken by a new family. Only difference is there’s now a tricycle with tasseled handlebars on the front lawn and a football wedged in a bush. When we drive by, I squint so these new additions get erased from the image.

  Home but not home.

  Mom, where are you? Silly of me to think you’d be more here than there.

  “Who’s Mr. Shackleman?” Scar asks.

  “My gym teacher. He’s a total perv.”

  “Oh my God. How funny would that be if SN turned out to be some old dude with, like, a neck beard?”

  “Yuck. He’s balding and has a beer gut.”

  “I think you’re going to have to get up on the Liam train, because he’s totally SN.” Scar pulls into the 7-Eleven, and we sit and just stare at the storefront and its big windows, into the fluorescent lights and shelves of processed food and the gleaming hot dogs on spits. I like it here in the car. A cocoon of plastic and metal.

  Mom, I miss you. I love you.

  “I just don’t, I don’t know,” I say, and focus. “I don’t see Liam in that way. He’s cute and all, but…it’s just kind of awkward with him. Fine. I know I sound weird and crazy picky. I should be happy anyone likes me—”

  “Come on, that’s ridiculous. If you aren’t into him, you aren’t into him. I’m not saying you should be desperate. I’m just saying you might not see what’s right in front of you. Like Adam and me.” I laugh, I can’t help it. Adam and Scar. Scar and Adam. The whole thing is kind of adorable. “Okay, fine. Laugh. Get it out now. Because I’m far from done.”

  “Scar and Adam sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes baby in the baby carriage.”

  “God forbid.”

  Here is what I want to say, but it sounds weird, even in my own head: Liam sometimes makes me feel noticed but never actually seen. I want to be seen. And maybe that’s another reason why I don’t think Liam is SN. Because SN really sees me. I believe that. He gets what I’ve been through. We connect.

  “So the sex thing. Want to talk about it?” I ask. Sex—the to have or not to have question—is the only part of her relationship with Adam we haven’t dissected in minute detail yet.

  “I want to do it. I mean, my girlie parts definitely do. But what if I’m bad at it, or I gross him out, or, you know, I get pregnant?”

  “Remember Health last year? With the condoms? Banana. Penis. Same difference, right? And you are so not going to gross him out.”

  “Even if I manage to figure it all out—how to get the condom on him—they, like, can break, or just not work, or whatever. I could go on the pill, but I don’t see how I can do that without talking to my mom, and she’d totally freak.” Scar stares straight ahead. This conversation is best had with our heads parallel. No eye contact.

  “Is Adam pushing it? Have you talked to him about it?” I ask.

  “Not really. I mean, I know he totally would—do it, I mean, not talk about it. Though I guess he’d do that too.”

  “Why not wait and see how it goes? He’s probably a virgin too. And if your mom sees you guys hanging around all the time, maybe she’ll bring it up.”

  “You have met my mother, right?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t have to figure it all out now.”

  “You don’t think I should do it?” she asks. It’s strange seeing her this way. So vulnerable, in doubt. In love. I think about what my mom would say, since I imagine us being close enough to talk about this kind of stuff if she were still alive. Most likely, we wouldn’t have been, though. Something happens when you turn sixteen, I think. Your parents become less your allies, more your biggest obstacles. I’m the only teenager I know who would want nothing more than to be grounded by my mother. The opposite of a punishment.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. You should do what you feel comfortable with.”

  “Cop-out answer, Jess.” I laugh, elbow her ribs. It occurs to me that what Scar needs right now is a friend like Scar: someone to break it down and tell it like it is.

  “Honestly, and I know this is funny coming from me, but you’re overthinking it. Relax. Do what you want to do when you want to do it. If you’re ready, go forth and prosper. If you’re not yet, that’s totally okay too. It feels like this huge deal now, but maybe it’s not.” I sound wise and sure, words I’ve never before applied to myself, especially in this context. “You just need to figure out whether you’re scared because it’s your first time—I mean, the first time is supposed to be a little scary, right?—or because you aren’t ready. There’s really no right answer here.”

  “You sound like me,” Scar says, and finally turns her head. There are tears in her eyes, which makes me sad, because she should be happy. She’s getting what she always wanted, to love and to be loved, even if it’s not exactly how she pictured it all.

  “I learned from the best,” I say, and smile. Then, in unison, without talking about it, like the old Scar and J, we open our car doors, stride into the 7-Eleven. And just as we used to, long before everything got so complicated, we head straight to the back, to the always-reliable Slurpee machine.

  Dri: Did Liam ask you out?

  Me: No!

  Wait, is that a lie? If he’s SN and we’re going to meet, does that count? And assuming Caleb has his facts straight and I’m the reason for the demise of Gem and Liam—I can’t bring myself to call them Gemiam—do I have an obligation to tell Dri?

  “Don’t tell her!” Scar says, reading my mind at the same time as she reads my texts over my shoulder. We’re back in the basement, and beautiful vampire men are saving helpless teenage girls from other, murderous vampires on television. We’re eating popcorn. I couldn’t be happier. “Seriously, it will just hurt her feelings. And it’s not a lie. Liam hasn’t asked you out.”

  Dri: I think he will. He likes you.

  Me: I’m not interested.

  Dri: What if he’s SN?

  Me: He’s not SN.

  Dri: But what if he is?

  Me: Dri!

  “She wants you to say you won’t go out with him. You can’t say that. If he’s SN, you need to give him a chance. You just do,” Scar says, her confidence back. This is the best friend I recognize: the one who tells the truth, no sugarcoating. “And if she’s really your friend, she’ll understand that.”

  “She is my friend, but we’re new. It’s different. We haven’t built up trust, you know?”

  “Still.”

  “Liam is not SN.”

  “Whatever. He totally is.” I smile at Scar, because it’s funny how she talks about my friends from Wood Valley like they’re characters from a TV show, like she’s betting on the next plot twist. In some ways, I do that too. Wood Valley sometimes feels like my pretend life.

  Dri: Liam doesn’t have a sister.

  Me: See.

  Dri: I don’t know. I still think Liam is SN. And yes, I’ll admit it. I’m totally jealous.

  Me: Please. Don’t. Be.

  Dri: Fine. Love you anyway. Going to go listen to “The Girl No One Knows” on repeat and feel sorry for myself.

  • • •

  Theo: WHAT THE WHAT? Liam broke up with Gem to be with you?

  Me: Who told you that?<
br />
  Theo: EVERYONE. Liam’s H-O-T. How’d you pull that one off?

  Me: I didn’t pull anything off.

  Theo: Girl, you are full of surprises.

  Me: Not really.

  Theo: He’s telling everyone you’re “like a breath of fresh air.”

  Me: That’s sweet of him, but it kind of makes me sound like a deodorant.

  Theo: By the way, your dad is making me pick you up from the airport, so you better not check any bags. Don’t keep me waiting.

  • • •

  Me: Three things. (1) I don’t know who you are. I wish I did, and Scar has her theories, but I just don’t know. I thought you were someone else, but now I know I was wrong. (2) I’ve never lied to you, I don’t think. Well, except that first day, when I said I have a black belt in karate. I’ve never done karate. I’m a crappy liar. I think it’s easy for me to talk to you, because I don’t know who you are. I guess it’s different for you? (3) I don’t know where home is anymore.

  SN: Maybe home doesn’t have to be a place.

  Me: Maybe not.

  CHAPTER 30

  Back in the air. This time it’s Chicago that slips away, gets smaller and smaller, until I can’t see the city at all, my home vanished just like that, and now there are only big swaths of green and brown, a patchwork quilt of earth. Again, my PSAT book sits on my lap, opened but not read, and I stare out the window, trying to decide which way I’d rather be flying: east, back to Scar, who has her own life now and less room for me, or west, back to Rachel’s house and my distracted dad, where scary things await. Facing Liam, and, if he doesn’t back out, SN. As for my father, I’ve ignored his calls and texts for the past week. Our silence is getting too loud, my sulk having crossed over into something tangible and hard and malignant.

  I wait until the fasten seat belt light goes off to take out the envelope Scar slipped to me just as I was leaving. A parting gift, she said. I flip it around in my hand, nervous to open it. I hope there are words of wisdom here, the sort of prescient advice Scar has always been able to freely share. When my mom died, Scar and I sat on my bed, and before she started the full-time job of distracting me from the pain—which she performed admirably and with such skill I never even noticed how much work she must have put into it—she said the only thing that made sense at the time, maybe the only thing that has made any sense since: Just so you know, I realize that what happened is not in any way okay, but I think we’re going to have to pretend like it is.

  Because it wasn’t okay and never will be. We will power through it; I will continue to power through it—all the stagnant, soul-crushing grief—but it will never be okay that my mom is not here. That she will not be at my high school graduation; that she will never give me the lecture, and I won’t be able to play along and pretend to be embarrassed and say, Come on, Mom; that she will not be there when I open my college acceptance letters (or rejections); that she will never see who I grow up to be—that great mystery of who I am and who I am meant to be—finally asked and answered. I will march forth into the great unknown alone.

  I open the envelope and out slips a new laptop tattoo, bigger than the other ones Scar’s made for me. This image in black-and-white. A ninja wielding a samurai sword, his eyes wide and blank and fierce. Attached is a small note: I wanted you to see yourself the way I see you: as a fighter. Strong and stealthy. Totally kick-ass. Completely and utterly your mother’s daughter. Love you, Scar.

  I hug the sticker to my chest, take it as an omen, the only way forward. I will stop being afraid of everything. Of hurt and rejection. Of my father’s ambivalence about me. Of hurting Dri’s feelings. Of facing Liam and Gem too. Of meeting SN in person, face to face. Of venturing forth, day by day, naked and unprotected into the bright, bright sun.

  CHAPTER 31

  Theo is wearing a charcoal-gray pin-striped blazer with matching shorts and a chauffeur’s cap, and is holding up a handwritten sign with my name on it. Not for the first time, I wonder how he has a costume for every occasion. Was he able to pull this together from the vast selection in his closet, or did he shop for the perfect pick-Jessie-up-from-the-airport outfit? Either way, I love the effort, even if he didn’t do it for my benefit.

  “Hello, my lady. Your chariot awaits,” Theo says, and grabs my duffel bag and throws it over his shoulder. “This is all you brought? What about shoes?”

  I point to the Vans on my feet.

  “You’re a lost cause,” he says, and leads me out of the air-conditioned terminal into the soft, warm Los Angeles evening. “So I only offered to do this because I thought you were going to spill. So…spill it.”

  “Ah, so you offered? I thought you said my dad made you.”

  “Whatever. Sometimes I’m nice. Don’t tell anyone. Now spill.”

  “Spill what? I’ve got nothing,” I say, and avoid his eyes, even though it’s the truth. Liam breaking up with Gem to be with me is just rumor. Liam has not called or texted or asked me out. I have never given him any reason to think we should be together, and I intend to keep it that way. The whys of their breakup are as much a mystery to me as whatever brought them together in the first place. And it’s not like Liam and I even have a relationship outside of work. Unless he’s SN. Which he’s not, regardless of Scar’s big theory.

  “Okay, then I’ll tell you what I know. Apparently, Mr. Liam has it bad for you. Like a serious case of the hots. Apparently, he thinks you are ‘a very good listener,’ ” Theo says, using air quotes, and leads me across the congested median into the parking lot, even putting his arm out to protect me from the traffic. I’ll give him this: Theo is gallant.

  “That makes no sense,” I say. “I mean, he had the most attractive girl in school. Literally. I saw the sophomore superlatives. She won most attractive in last year’s yearbook. There’s a picture.”

  “The world is a wondrous and mysterious place. And there’s no accounting for taste.” He takes another pointed look at my Vans. I scratch my chin with my middle finger.

  “I don’t want Liam to ask me out.” Theo leads me to his car and even opens his passenger-side door for me with a little bow. Sees his performance all the way through, except he doesn’t make me sit in the back. The interior of his car is pristine, so different from Scar’s parents’ Honda, which is filled with candy wrappers and gas receipts. “Even if I should be, you know, flattered.”

  “Why not? He’s a cool guy. Maybe not the brightest, but still—” Theo swings out of the parking spot and navigates easily out of the lot and onto the freeway. He’s a more comfortable driver than I am, moving in and out of lanes as if he owns the road and he’s just being kind by letting the other cars share it. “Oh shit, don’t tell me it’s because of Ethan.”

  “It’s not because of Ethan. And he’s not who you think he is,” I say, hating the obvious defensiveness in my voice.

  “You totally have a girlie boner for him.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “You weren’t here.” Theo’s face turns dark, and at first, I think he’s just acting. Trying out a new role: troubled. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to go there.”

  “What do you mean I wasn’t here?”

  “When Xander died. I mean, we all knew he was using, but heroin? That stuff is crazy dangerous. And he was like a god at school, before. Because of Oville.” Theo cuts off a mom in a minivan, ignores her honks. “They were going to start playing real gigs, like on Sunset. We were all shocked when he OD’d. But not really, you know what I mean?”

  “What does that have to do with Ethan? I mean, yeah, so they were in a band together, but that doesn’t mean Ethan’s an addict too.” I wonder what that must have been like for Ethan, watching one of his bandmates slowly kill himself. Whether he felt as helpless as I did when I watched my mom fight against an invisible army of spreading cancer cells.

  “Xander was Ethan’s older brother.”

  “What?” I ask, even though of course I heard him the first time. It’s j
ust that I never put a name to what I recognized of myself in Ethan’s eyes—that look on his face when he stares out the window, the shell shock, the insomnia. Grief. “Ethan’s brother died? From a heroin overdose?”

  I say it out loud, just so it seeps in and starts to make sense. Because a thought is forming in my mind, and if I’m right, it will change everything. I am a ninja, and I’ll be stealthy and slow and deliberate. Fight for what I want. But I am not a ninja, and I am confused and spinning. It’s starting to come together too fast, and my heart is barely beating, too slow, and I whip out my phone because I want to ask SN outright, not wait until our big meeting.

  Three simple words: “Are you Ethan?”

  Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.

  The new mantra in my head, happily replacing whoreslutfatuglybitch.

  Was the lie that simple? A sister substituted for a brother? And how could I have not even considered it? How blind I have been to everyone and everything around me.

  Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.

  I didn’t even dare to hope. I barely dare to hope now.

  I put my phone away. Shake my head to redirect my thoughts. I’ve been wrong once. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Wait. See.

  But. Ethan.

  “Are you okay?” Theo asks me. “You look a little green.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Fine.”

  SN: did you know that there isn’t a Waffle House in the entire state of California? we have to go to Arizona.

  Me: Why do we have to do that?

  SN: WAFFLES. your favorite word. my favorite food. kismet. thought it would have a certain amount of poetic charm for us to meet in one.

  Me: Yeah, appreciate the sentiment, but not going to Arizona with you.

  SN: fine. then let’s meet at IHOP. what are pancakes if not waffles in another form?