by Phoebe North
“Oh, okay. Um, ten?” That’s going to be a stretch for me. Usually, I’m hardly out of bed at ten on Saturdays. But I guess Annie’s a morning person. Seems like she would be. Up with the dawn or something.
“Sure, sounds good.”
My mom lightly beeps the horn. I cock my thumb that way.
Annie just laughs. “See you,” she says.
I rush down her front walk, hop into the car, and close the door behind me. My mom is giving me a significant look, but I ignore it until we’re at the end of the road.
“New friend?” she finally asks pointedly.
I can’t wait until I get my full license so I don’t have to get the third degree every time I go somewhere. “Yeah,” I say. “Her name is Annie. She’s a sophomore.”
I’m hoping my mom doesn’t remember that James [Redacted] had a little sister. It would just be too weird to explain now. Luckily, she only nods. “A sophomore,” she says as she signals around the corner. Her tone is curious, probing, nosy. I shrink down in my seat, waiting for it. “Is she a friend-friend or a girlfriend?”
There it is. I hold my hands over my face. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I’d just stayed in the closet. “Mom!”
But my mom is great about these things. She always is. I should be grateful, really, that she wants to talk about them, that she wants to know about my life and that she never, ever judges me for it.
“Sorry! I just can’t help but wonder—”
“She’s a friend, okay? Just a friend.”
“Okay,” my mom says, but something about her smile is twisted at the corners, like she knows something I don’t. She says again, “Okay.”
I hate that smile. I hate the feeling that’s tossing my stomach right now, a perfect mix of excitement and embarrassment. I hate the fact that my mother always knows me way better than I know myself.
Eight
IF MY MOM DIDN’T SUSPECT anything before, then she definitely does now, Saturday morning, when my alarm goes off at eight a.m. I take a long shower, combing out my hair and braiding it down my back. Then I go into my room and stand there, in only a towel, trying to figure out what to wear. Again. Years ago, with James, it would have been easy. I was all about dresses then, heavy swoopy makeup caked on. But I’ve changed. I’m not the same person anymore. And Annie isn’t James, anyway. She’s always dressed like she’s hardly put any thought into it. She’s not a total slob, but her shirts and jeans and sneakers seem just slightly out of style, like her mom grabbed whatever was on sale at Target because Annie was going to wear it no matter what.
I’ve managed to put on underwear, and nothing else, when my mom walks by my open bedroom door.
“Your friend is coming over, isn’t she?” she asks, like we didn’t talk about it at dinner last night. “What was her name? Hannah?”
“Annie,” I say smoothly, like I don’t care that she’s asking.
Mom leans against the doorjamb, looking at me. “What are you guys going to do?”
“Listen to records. Daddy said we could hang out in his office.”
“How retro,” Mom says, grinning at me. She’s teasing. She didn’t even listen to records as a teenager. It was all cassette tapes for her, until my dad showed her the rich, pure sound of vinyl. Dad’s ridiculous about that stuff, but he’s not wrong, either.
“You know me. I’m totally eighties fabulous,” I say.
“Bodacious,” my mom says. She comes over and pushes a strand of damp hair behind my ear. “I think you should wear something comfortable.”
“Because I’m gorgeous no matter what I’m wearing?”
“Well, that,” Mom says, nodding slowly. “But also, if you’re hanging out listening to records, I think it’s best to project an air of effortless beauty. Casual confidence. Unpretentious ease.”
I can’t help it. I giggle a little bit at that. Mom throws her arms around my shoulders and smushes my face in a kiss. Then she leaves me to it.
I put on a camisole top in deep purple, and a pair of stripy pajama pants. Nice ones, though. Then I head downstairs for breakfast, ready to face the day.
Ready to face her.
I climb the steps to Dad’s attic office, Annie trailing next to me. She’s staring at the album covers framed on the hallway walls, pausing at each one just a little too long. I want to get her into his office before Mom starts asking us questions, but Annie’s in no hurry. She points to one of the many George Harrison albums, one where he looks a little bit like a serial killer, long hair and a beard.
“Your dad must really have the hots for this guy,” she says, chuckling to herself at her joke. But it’s practically not a joke.
“Yeah, that’s his favorite Beatle. He was going through this whole George Harrison Hare Krishna thing when he met my mom. That must have been disappointing.”
“What do you mean?”
I slump my weight against the wall, smothering a few David Bowies behind me in the process. “He probably thought she’d help him find enlightenment. You know, he started yoga, picked up the sitar, started dating a Desi woman. But Mom’s an accountant.”
“They get along, though, right?”
Annie’s tone is worried. I remember that her parents don’t get along. From what James used to tell me, they never really did, except in a highly fucked-up, dysfunctional way. I want to reassure her. I smile weakly.
“Yeah, they do. It works for some reason. Maybe because Dad gave up the whole cultural appropriation nirvana thing and went back to being an atheist. They’ve been crazy about each other since the day they met.”
“Good,” Annie says. She hustles up the stairs past me, her shoulder brushing my chest. As she passes, I hear her say, “I’m glad they get along. My parents hate each other’s guts.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I follow her up the stairs.
My father’s record collection takes up an entire floor-to-ceiling wall of Ikea storage. When I was a kid, he kept it all in our living room. But Mom eventually got annoyed with it. She said that the records were sucking in all the psychic energy of our house. She’s kind of superstitious about that sort of thing in a way that Dad never is, so we disassembled the Expedit and spent a weekend putting it back together and hefting hundreds of records up the stairs and realphabetizing them. Sometimes I miss it, the way my parents used to put on Duke Ellington and dance together after dinner. But usually these days Mom will ask me to play some piano for them to dance to instead, so I really don’t mind. It’s the dancing that matters. Not the soundtrack.
“Wow,” Annie says, running her fingertip along a row of albums, “your dad really loves music.”
Her gaze sweeps the finished attic space. There are guitars hanging from the walls, a keyboard in one corner. The sofa bed has framed sheet music hanging over it. All my dad’s favorite songs. I think I know how Annie is feeling. When I was a kid, I felt the same way up here. Kind of in quiet awe. It’s almost like a holy space. My dad’s church.
“He should. He’s a professor of music history. He’s teaching at State today, actually. History of Rock and Roll, his favorite.”
“I’ll bet,” Annie says. Then she looks over her shoulder at me. She’s smirking, but it’s more out of embarrassment than anything else. “Is it weird if I admit that music doesn’t do much for me? I only started taking chorus because I wanted to do something without Jamie.”
My eyes widen. The truth is, I can’t imagine it, not being moved by music. It’s the fabric of my life, from my earliest memories to my most distant future. It’s a language I’ve been speaking since I was a baby, and I wonder how muted the world would sound without it.
“Only a little,” I lie.
She winces. “Sorry. It’s nothing personal. I see it means the world to you.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. I don’t know why I feel so shy about it. Mom is always telling me that there’s no shame in loving something. But things are different in high school for me than they were for her. I
know that to the other kids only certain types of love are acceptable. It’s much easier to be cool, calm, unaffected. Easier not to care about anything, even the super-important stuff. That’s why I took down my Tolkien pictures, why I mostly keep my love of ancient rock stars a secret from everybody but Harper.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to forget how much James meant to me. Because he did, didn’t he? No matter what I say to my friends at the lunch table. I loved him once. A lot. I mean, and crap, my hands are shaking as I pull the bootleg Beach Boys record out of Dad’s shelving unit. I waited so long to share this with him, and never got to. Now I’ll share it with his sister, who doesn’t even care. It’s not the same, but it’s all I’ve got.
Annie sits down on the sofa, watching as I open up the record player, lift the arm, and set the record down. But Annie’s not really listening as the record pops and fizzles and then starts up. She’s squinting at me, a question in her eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“How did you and Jamie meet, anyway?”
My stomach drops. I turn away from the record, where the Beach Boys are starting and stopping “God Only Knows” over and over again.
“What?” I say again, even though I heard her fine the first time. I didn’t expect her to ask me this. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect to ever have to answer this question.
“Where did you guys meet?” Then she adds, “I always thought it was weird, because he was kind of with someone when you guys got together. Nina Westervelt. And that didn’t seem like him. To like two girls at once.”
No, I guess it wouldn’t have. James was a little bit of a rebel, but he’d always had a noble heart. I take a breath.
“At GSA,” I tell her. I don’t have to tell her what that acronym means. Everyone in our middle school knew about GSA. There were posters on the walls, announcements at morning meeting. Part of the principal’s anti-bullying measures. Gay-Straight Alliance. Except straight kids never really joined. The Queer Kids Club was what we called ourselves. We met in Mr. McKavity’s office. Talked about our parents and whether or not they accepted us. Talked about marching in the pride parade in Elting, even though we never did. That kind of thing.
“. . . Oh.” Annie says. She’s staring at me, and I’m nervous as hell. One of the Beach Boys coughs, and Annie starts talking, but I do, too, at the exact same time.
“He was questioning a lot of things back then, you know?” I say. “Religion and sexuality—”
I guess it was the wrong thing to say, because Annie says firmly, “Jamie isn’t gay.”
Oh, fuck. I didn’t mean to out him to her. It doesn’t feel right, even now. It’s his business, or it was. Not hers. But then, he’s dead now, and maybe it would help her to hear it.
“Not gay,” I say. “He thought maybe bi, like I am. You know, questioning—”
“But Jamie doesn’t like boys,” she says. “I know he doesn’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No,” she says quickly, “I can. Because we’re the same, and I don’t like boys.”
Just then, the Beach Boys are all murmuring together, and Annie’s mouth shuts tight. A dappled pink color seems to appear out of nowhere on her neck and chin and cheeks. I realize: she’s never said that before. She might drop tantalizing references to “pretty girls,” but it’s thoughtless, breezy. She’s never come out. This is her first time. I go and sit down next to her.
“How’s it feel to say that?” I ask her. I remember how it felt my first time, terrifying and exhilarating. Like I was kind of a superhero. I wonder if I should take her hand, but she just cringes.
“Unnecessary” is all she says. She’s still bright pink, but the color is fading now. She won’t look at me.
“Your brother wasn’t sure,” I say gently. “He was still figuring things out. He said something had happened with—”
“Can we not talk about Jamie right now?” she asks. Then she buries her face in her hands and speaks into the creases of her palms. “Sorry I brought it up.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. And it is. Or it will be soon, even if she doesn’t know it. I lie back on the sofa bed, staring up at the high vaulted ceiling. Remembering my first time. I’d been nine when I told my parents I thought I might marry a girl someday. They took it in stride—like they take everything in stride. Of course, not everyone in my family was so accepting. Naniji and Nanaji still pretend like it’s not true. But eventually, saying it became easier, most of the time. I know it will someday for her, too.
But right now, Annie is still sitting there, rubbing her eyes. The record crackles. And then it starts. “Help Me, Rhonda.” The reason I’d invited James here that Friday.
“Listen,” I tell her. She drops her hands, tilting her ear toward the speakers. It’s the same old familiar song, the one that plays on whatever classic rock Spotify playlist and over the tubes at the supermarket. No music, just vocals, but then the Boys stop singing and another voice, soft and angry and urgent, comes in.
“Who is that?” she asks. The man in the background is saying that the song sounds horrible. But it doesn’t sound horrible. It sounds like magic.
“Brian Wilson’s dad.”
Annie is quiet for a moment longer, listening. The Boys keep trying to sing, but they can’t. They keep getting interrupted. “What’s his problem?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. My dad says that Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear because his father hit him when he was a little kid. But in his biographies, he’s not even angry about it. He says that his father being so hard on him is what made him good at music.”
Annie lies back in bed beside me. She closes her eyes, listening. Murry Wilson is saying over and over again, “Loosen up. Be happy. Be happy.” Her hands are resting on her belly, rising and falling with her breath. She licks her lips before she speaks but doesn’t open her eyes.
“Funny how you can tell someone is yelling even if they don’t raise their voice at all.”
It’s true. The sound of Murry Wilson’s voice makes my pulse race. I’ve listened to this album probably a thousand times but it still makes me feel kind of nauseous. And my dad would never talk to me that way.
“I know why you wanted to play this for Jamie,” Annie says, eyes still shut, even though we’re not supposed to talk about him. “His whole life used to be like this song, I think. Trying and trying, and disappointing Dad, no matter what he did.”
My stomach clenches. She understands. She gets it. Sees something special in these grooves, which is almost as good as understanding me. I’m looking at the wet spot in the middle of her lower lip.
“Is it like that for you?” I ask. “With your dad, I mean?”
Annie snorts a little.
“What?” I say.
She opens her eyes, staring straight into mine. I’ve been watching her so closely that I feel untethered. Brian Wilson is talking, anger mounting in his voice, but I can’t hear him.
“Dad doesn’t worry about me. He used to, because I was weird, but he doesn’t anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a girl or what. I mean, he and Elijah are thick as thieves. But I might as well be invisible.”
I look at her, hair fanned out across the ancient plaid sheets, crackly bolts of light in her eyes, those vampire teeth showing beneath her lips as she breathes deeply, like the air in my dad’s office might somehow cleanse her whole body. She’s got freckles and a small faint line in between her eyebrows, which are just a little wild, like she’s never plucked them.
“I see you,” I tell her. Echoes of James’s words. I’m stealing them from him, and that’s wrong, but in the moment, it feels right, too.
She draws in another breath, shrugging. “I’m just the sister left behind.”
In this light, I can see the nearly invisible hairs on her earlobes and all along her thin, bare arms. The Beach Boys are finally singing again. They’ve kicked out Brian Wilson’s dad at last, and it’s only their v
oices, swelling toward the ceiling of the attic room, full of light.
“No, you’re not,” I tell her, smiling. I’m not sure if I’m teasing her or not when I say, “You’re Annie, Queen of Gumlea.”
She wrinkles her nose at that. But then she sits up anyway, leaning her weight on her elbows. She looks down, her eyelashes trembling. Then she looks up again, and she’s kissing me, or I’m kissing her, I’m not sure which.
Nine
WHATEVER WAY YOU WANT TO look at it, Annie’s body is soft and warm beneath mine. Her mouth is all wet and slippery, tongue and lips, and her hands don’t stop at all as they trace my curves from throat to chest to belly to hip. My back arches, and I feel my body melt into hers. At some point the record crackles over to the next track, an outtake version of “Good Vibrations.” Spaceship sounds are all around us, and we’re kissing without ever coming up for air. In that moment, that endless moment, wrinkling the sheets beneath our bodies, dozens of dead rock stars smiling down at us, we’re not two girls brought together by the tragedy of James M. [Redacted]. We’re just two girls, our bodies on fire, notes humming through every cell, just two girls kissing in an attic, our bodies singing the very same tune. I think, as I slide my hand up her shirt and feel the warm skin of her belly, that this song has been sung for a thousand years. Someday, when the sun goes supernova, two girls will be kissing one another while music written by robots fades out behind them, their bodies burning away together to nothing but dust.
The record’s over and the needle back in place by the time we pull our bodies apart. Annie’s hair is all askew as she puts her bra back on. Her eyes are wide and full of laughter.
“Wow,” she says at last, biting her lip. Then her smile grows. “But you know, I’m not actually a queen in Gumlea.”
“No?”
“No. Emperata is the term Jamie came up with.”
I’m not sure, but I think her smile flags a little at the mention of him. Honestly, I don’t really want to think about him, either. Not anymore today. This world is for me and Annie. Not for James.