Holden’s entire countenance seemed to change. At first, I thought he was becoming standoffish. It took me a second to remember that I wasn’t myself, I was Wynonna Jones, and—holy shit—was Holden blushing?
It was less like actual blushing, and more like everything that came with the act of blushing: the timid smiling, the fidgety eye contact, the fact that he was still pulling napkins out of the napkin dispenser. Like, Jesus, how many napkins did he need? His mind was totally not connected to his body at the moment.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
On the one hand, this was super weird. My best friend was crushing on me. Even if I wasn’t—strictly speaking—me. The sexual tension was there, and it was thick.
On the other hand…I felt powerful.
It’s not like I was hungry for power. I wasn’t aspiring to be some railroad tycoon-ing, newspaper magnate-ing, Donald Trump–ing orange megalomaniac. Or a Dark Lord. But the power was there. It was real. It was a gravitational pull around my very being, and Holden had been sucked into my orbit.
It felt good.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, Sméagol. Put your Precious away for half a goddamn second. We had a job to do. At least, we did if we wanted Wynonna’s help. And I needed her help if I wanted to go to prom with Imogen. What better way to make amends with her—to get back on track with the Plan—than to get her a foot in the door with Holden?
“Do you wanna hang out?” I asked.
Holden looked at me like I had asked him what the universe was made out of.
“After school,” I said. “You know, since…”
The implication was: You’re a best friend short, and I’m a best friend short, so…
“What’s going on?” said Holden.
“Uh,” I said.
“Why is Ezra acting so strange? In fact, why are you acting so strange? You both started acting strange at the same time—the exact same time—and I refuse to believe that it isn’t connected.”
Holden leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close to my face. Studied me like a Sudoku puzzle.
“Did you two have sex?” he asked.
“WHAT?”
“It’s fine if you did,” said Holden. He leaned back, folding his arms. “I’m not judging. I just want to know what the hell’s going on.”
It was such an outrageous accusation, I could barely form a response.
“N-n-n-no,” I stuttered finally. I had to mentally remind myself who I was. “Ezra and I…did NOT…have s—”
“How did you quote Romeo?”
The question caught me off guard. “What?”
“Yesterday,” said Holden. “You recited Romeo and Juliet during your audition. You were quoting Romeo specifically. I only know that because my best friend in the whole world has those same fucking lines memorized. He played Romeo in elementary school, and it was, like, the pinnacle of his entire existence. So how do you have those lines memorized?”
My mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.
“And while we’re at it,” said Holden, “Duke Orsino?! That was the one role Ezra was dead set on getting. And suddenly, he’s a psychopath who wants to be a tree, and you’re fluent in Shakespeare and are gunning for the role instead. And don’t even get me started on that vengeful look on your face. You were auditioning for that role like you were getting back at someone. And that someone was Ezra. Am I right? Tell me that I’m wrong. I dare you to tell me that I’m wrong.”
I had to hand it to Holden: He was observant. His penchant for conspiracy theories probably only helped the situation.
“Here’s what I think happened,” said Holden. “I think you were picking on Ezra like you always do. And I think you always pick on him because maybe you have a thing for him. And I’ll just say it: Ezra is a pretty sexually frustrated guy.”
Wow. Thanks, buddy.
“Anyway,” he continued, “one thing leads to another. Suddenly, the sexual tension pops, and you guys just do it. Like, in the janitor’s closet, maybe.”
I raised a dubious eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe not the janitor’s closet. It’s not important where you guys did it. The important thing is that you did. You did it. You banged. Maybe Ezra lured you in quoting Romeo or something. Yeah, that’s where you learned it! Ezra’s smooth Romeo lines. You swooned over those words, and you memorized them in your heart, and then you banged.”
My god. Did Holden live in a daytime soap opera?
“But then it was weird,” said Holden. His eyes drifted as he thought. “And maybe Ezra realized he didn’t have a thing for you. That maybe he made a big mistake. And that turned him into an angsty psycho. And you—heartbroken—decided to exact revenge upon him, using the very same Romeo lines with which he swooned you.”
Holden ended his rant sort of breathless. He returned his focus to me.
“Am I close?” he said—suddenly not so sure of himself.
Okay, here was the thing: Wynonna and I had a lot of explaining to do. We had inadvertently burned bridges for each other—perhaps the most important bridges of all: our friendships—and with those bridges burned, we couldn’t very well help each other out.
But maybe Holden was onto something with this “sex” scenario. It could explain my and Wynonna’s irrational behavior. It could explain why we had inexplicably distanced ourselves from our best friends. And, in all honesty, it was nothing for Holden and Imogen to get upset over. If anything, Holden and Imogen would be sympathetic! They knew about our real crushes. They would know that this was a mistake on our parts—a lapse in good judgment, driven by our tortured hearts.
It could draw the four of us closer together. Which could make my and Wynonna’s jobs sooooo much easier.
I gave a great sigh, like the proverbial jig was finally up.
“I can explain,” I said.
• •
I basically fed Holden’s story right back to him. Because he had hypothesized the whole thing on his own, I didn’t even have to convince him of anything.
“I knew it!” he said. “Goddammit, I knew it!”
He looked rather proud of himself—which was good. Feeling proud meant he wasn’t angry.
“Ezra and I screwed up,” I said, in conclusion. “He and I both know that. We want to make things normal again. But it might take a while for things to adjust. Some days, Ezra might not be himself. I might not be myself. We need your and Imogen’s help in that department. Ezra needs your help.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” said Holden, nodding.
“I know about his crush on Imogen.”
“Holy shit! He told you?”
“We had sex. Is that really more surprising than us having sex?”
Holden had to think about that for a second. Shook his head slowly. “No. I guess not.”
“Okay, so…look. It’s probably best if I talk to Ezra first. Let him know that I talked to you. In the meantime, can I ask a favor?”
“Uh…sure?”
“Can you talk to Imogen?”
“What? You want me to talk to her?”
“I don’t know where she is. And even if I did, I don’t know if she’d talk to me. She really wanted to be Viola, and…well, you were there.”
Holden bit his lip. Nodded thoughtfully.
“If you talk to her,” I said, “maybe she won’t be mad at me anymore. Then I can help you matchmake Ezra and Imogen.”
Holden received that last bit like a baseball to the head. He sort of wobbled back in his seat for balance. “Wait. You’ll help us?”
“Dude,” I said. “The sooner they’re together, the sooner all this awkwardness will be behind us. Why wouldn’t I help you?”
Holden looked me dead in the eyes—dead as a redshirt in Star Trek.
Then he cracked a grin. He extended his hand to shake on it.
“Wynonna,” he said, Humphrey Bogart–esquely, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
• •
I was st
ill Wynonna by the end of school, so I hightailed it to my house. Ezra’s house. I only stalled once, but it was at a stop sign in my neighborhood with no witnesses. So it was almost like it never happened.
All the while, I kept my eyes peeled for that shady-as-fuck Malibu with its matching driver.
No Malibu. No skeezy bearded dude, dressed for a stakeout. The drive home was completely sketch-free.
When I finally pulled into my cul-de-sac, I came to a verrrrry slow stop in front of my house.
There was another strange vehicle in the driveway. The good news was that it wasn’t the Malibu. The bad news was that it was a douchey-looking short-bed Escalade. It was the sort of flashy identity-crisis-of-a-vehicle you drove when you wanted the reputation of a truck but none of the responsibility. The best compliment I could give it was that it wasn’t Jayden’s pimped-out Honda Civic.
I put the Saturn in neutral, pulled up the parking brake, turned off the engine, and stalked up the driveway. I passed the Escalade and went straight to the garage door. Raised myself on my tiptoes and peeked through the small garage window.
My Subaru was still inside.
I marched to the front door with my arms straight, fists pinned to my hips. My hand reached for the doorknob like I was going to strangle it. It was only with the greatest self-control that I stopped myself.
I knocked instead.
I heard silent whispering from inside. Then silence.
The door opened. On the other side was Thad Magnino.
Thad looked me up and down like I was a piece of meat—the exotic sort that wasn’t exactly his type but that he was willing to try at least once. His snacky eyes made me feel like I was wearing Saran wrap for clothes. Like I was somebody’s fucking leftovers in the fridge, up for grabs.
“Can I help you?” said Thad. He paused before adding, sort of hopefully, “Are you one of Willow’s friends?”
“I need to talk to Ezra,” I said flatly.
“Oh.” There was disappointment in his expression, but also something else. Like he was silently evaluating a challenge. “Well, Ezra’s not home right now—”
“Ezra!” I yelled.
“Whoa, what the— I just told you, he’s not home!”
“EZRA SLEVIN, I KNOW YOU’RE HERE.”
“What the hell?” This came from Willow. She approached the doorway, every inch of her crawling with irritation. And then the recognition clicked. “You’re that girl from theater.” And then, back to irritation. “What do you want?”
I wanted her to explain what the fuck this guy from my grade was doing answering the door to my house, hanging out with my little sister, who was a freshman, for god’s sake! But I couldn’t very well say that because I wasn’t me.
Fortunately, Wynezra appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a sleepy but curious expression. The floor creaked beneath her feet, and that made both Willow and Thad jump and spin.
“Ezra?” said Willow, slightly traumatized. “How long have you been here?”
Wynezra glanced lazily at a watch that wasn’t on her wrist, then chuckled and shrugged. “Since…all day?”
Willow’s eyes became distant, like a small universe inside her head was imploding and disintegrating into stardust.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure,” I said to no one in particular, marched upstairs, grabbed Wynezra by the arm, and pulled her into my bedroom.
I closed the door and threw my back against it, as if that might magically make it soundproof.
“What the fuck?” I said, as if that adequately encapsulated all the questions I was trying to ask.
“Dude, I just wasn’t feeling like school today—” said Wynezra.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I said. “Not you. What the fuck are they doing?”
“What? Your sister and Player McGee?”
“Yes!”
Wynezra’s eyes wandered and her lips puckered into a small, secretive hole. “I’m not sure you want to know.”
I grabbed Wynezra by the biceps, wide-eyed and vaguely psychopathic. “Tell me.”
“Okay, well…” said Wynezra. “It starts with a B.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nodding, and racking my brain over every sinister thing I could think of that started with the letter B.
“And ends with ‘lowjob.’”
I stopped nodding. The axis of my neck seized up.
“Look, I just didn’t want to say the word,” said Wynezra, hands raised in a cease-fire. “But yeah, your sister gave Dick Tracy the ol’ mouth-to-south. I saw them when I snuck downstairs to forage for food.”
My jaw had lost the ability to close. It was hanging by the sinews.
“Sorry,” said Wynezra, as an afterthought.
“WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?” I said in a soft, calm, falsetto scream.
“Dude, I don’t know,” said Wynezra. She flopped on my bed, clearly losing interest in the conversation. “Sometimes girls do things. For reasons.”
“What reason could there possibly be?”
“Okay, you are clearly new at the girl thing. I’ll spell it out for you in easy-to-understand words: She obviously likes him. I mean, aside from the fact that he’s a total tool bag, he’s got a sexy California surfer thing going on.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Something’s wrong.”
“She’s your little sister. I get it. No one likes to see their little sister with anyone.”
“No!” I insisted. “I mean…just two days ago, Jayden Hoxsie was here.”
“Jayden? As in Thad’s best friend.”
“Yeah, same one who’s in Twelfth Night with us. Except when he was here, Willow was really mad at him for something. Screaming ‘fuck you’ and stuff. And I’ve seen other random cars here, too—all guys from school. I’ve seen her mad at at least half of them, but she won’t tell me anything. I’m telling you, something’s wrong.”
“Huh,” said Wynezra. “That is weird.”
I ran my tongue along my teeth inside my lips, deliberating. It was the first time I had done it as Wynonna. The sensation of feeling someone else’s teeth inside your mouth was possibly the weirdest thing of all. Even weirder than the no-dick situation, which was Alejandro Jodorowsky–weird.
“Can you talk to her?” I said.
“Me?” said Wynezra—propping herself up on the bed with her elbows. She almost looked amused. Almost.
“You’re better at talking to people than me.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Please?”
“Dude,” said Wynezra. “Don’t take it personally. Imogen has an older brother, and she loves him to death, but she would never confide in him about…you know…stuff like that.”
“Stuff like that?” I repeated.
“Sex stuff.”
I immediately wanted to ask Wynonna what sort of “sex stuff” Imogen had to confide. It was a screw turning slowly, drilling twist by twist into the center of my curiosity. But I refrained.
“Can you ask her when you’re…you?” I said.
Wynezra actually started laughing. “Seriously?”
“Maybe she just needs a female role model she can confide in,” I said. “She doesn’t have any sisters, and my mom’s always gone, and even if she wasn’t…well…there’s some trust issues. But you’re cool! You’re hip!”
“You did not just call me hip,” said Wynezra. She covered her face with her hands, barely suppressing the laughter. “What are you, seventy years old?”
“Please, Wynonna. She’s my little sister. I’m worried.”
“If you’re so worried,” said Wynezra, “why don’t you go talk to her? You’re the female right now. You’re cool, hip Wynonna, and you know your sister better than me. Go break the ice.”
“How?” I said, hysterically. “How does one break ice?”
“Just shoot the shit.”
“What does that even mean?”
Wynezra sighed. “Fine. When I’m me, if I happen to sit next to her in theater, or if
I see her in the hall at school or whatever…I’ll talk to her.”
I was so ecstatic, I could have hugged her. But she was lying on my bed, and we were in each other’s body, and that probably would have been the weirdest possible thing I could do. So I didn’t.
I had ridden the Tangent Train far enough. It was time to get back to business.
“I talked to Holden,” I said.
That might have been the most inconsequential thing anyone had ever said in the history of inconsequence. Except that I was Wynonna.
Suddenly, the context was revolutionary.
Wynezra’s expression seemed to make that deductive leap as her face seemed to say “Who gives a fuck?” but then connected the dots and held that “fuck” like Christine Daaé from Phantom of the Opera. FuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKK!
She sat upright, crawled to the foot of my bed, and perched on the edge like a gargoyle.
“What did you say?”
“Well,” I said, “I may have told him some untruths.”
I told Wynezra everything—from Holden “blushing,” to my attempted flirtation, to Holden’s accusation—all of which led up to the Great Untruth. That she and I had sex, and that’s why we were acting weird.
I told her that Holden agreed to talk to Imogen.
I told her that Holden said this was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
All the while, Wynezra’s face was a panorama of overacted expressions—from bliss, to outrage, to horror—all the way to Holden’s “beautiful friendship” comment, which seemed to defuse the nerve endings in her face.
“Casablanca?” she said. “He quoted Casablanca?”
I was kind of impressed she even knew what Casablanca was.
“Yeah?” I said. “I guess? Is that bad?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be bad if he said, ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’ But he said, ‘This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’ That’s what Humphrey Bogart says to the cop. I don’t wanna be the cop! I wanna be Ingrid Bergman!”
“I think you’re reading too much into Holden’s pop culture references. Honestly, I don’t think he’s even seen Casablanca. He probably saw it referenced in an episode of Family Guy.”
“Oh,” said Wynezra. She nodded hopefully. Enthusiastically. “Yeah. Okay.”
Where I End and You Begin Page 13