by E. Lockhart
The morning after they went swimming, Jack showed up at the dog run. He was holding a paper bag stained with grease.
“Diner breakfast,” he said. “Leftovers. I thought your dogs would like it.”
“That’s sweet,” said Adelaide.
“I wanted to say sorry,” said Jack.
“What for?”
“I—I asked you out yesterday, and you know, I think we had a really good time. But when you took that phone call, I realized—”
“I shouldn’t have taken that call,” interrupted Adelaide. “That was rude. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not it,” said Jack. “I realized I shouldn’t be there. At the taco place. With you.”
“Why not?”
“I have someone else,” said Jack. “It’s new. Just a couple weeks. But I think it’s—well…it’s a thing. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted. I mean, you’re a very distracting girl.”
“I am.” Adelaide forced herself to say it brightly.
“Yeah. And I’m kind of a jerk to have brought you out swimming when I’m not really free.”
“Yeah. You are,” she said. “But thanks for the intel.”
* * *
“What diner did you go to?”
“That one on Fremont. I went for a six a.m. breakfast. I had trouble sleeping.”
He looked at her water bottle, which was on the bench. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead.”
He drank.
She wanted to leap on top of him because he’d brought her bacon.
Maybe if she just leaped on him while he sat there on the park bench, Jack would be like, Oh yeah, let’s make out. That is why I brought the bacon, after all—to get you to make out with me.
He really might. He was looking at her with the look of a boy who had taken a good deal of trouble to bring a girl an excellent and very greasy present.
“I had this boyfriend Mikey Double L,” she told Jack. “He broke my heart abruptly. Recently. That’s why I cried the other day.”
“When did it happen?”
“Last week.”
“Do we hate him forever? Should I embark on a campaign to avenge your wounded spirit?”
“I just might not be over it,” Adelaide said. “I like you so much, and I might not be over it.”
“The bacon doesn’t have to mean anything,” Jack said. “It’s just a pork product.”
“I’m just saying,” she told him. “People befriend me because they think I’m
happy. I’m not even sure why they think I’m
happy, but they do. I get distracted, and
I laugh, and
I turn something on in myself that makes me, maybe, fun to be with.
And I’m just— I want you to know up front that I’m
false advertising.
I don’t mean to be;
I just am. I have, like, this
huge misery inside me that’s really very, very unattractive, and it has to do with my
abruptly broken heart but also with
my brother, who is messed up possibly beyond repair.”
“I didn’t think you seemed happy,” said Jack.
“You didn’t?”
“No. I thought you seemed interesting.”
Adelaide didn’t know what to say to that.
“I like listening to you talk,” continued Jack. “You’re surprising.” And he reached out his hand to her. When she gave him hers, he
pulled her to him, fast, and they
stumbled a little, his leg making it a little hard for him to balance, apparently, and he kind of
caught her mouth with his, and his kiss was so
urgent, and so
sweet, that Adelaide felt she might
collapse with the
joy of it.
* * *
—
“Bacon is definitely meaningful,” said Stacey S on the phone. “But it’s no bicycle. And the bicycle turned out to be unimportant too, in the long run. Though I’m sure Mikey meant it at the time.”
“I don’t want to talk about the bicycle.” Adelaide was sitting on EllaBella’s stoop, scratching the dog’s hairy neck.
“Okay, Adelaide, but there are lots of things you don’t want to talk about. And yet, you’re calling me.” Adelaide could hear the whirr of Stacy’s blender in the background.
“What should I do?”
“I think you should not go out with anybody right after breaking up with Mikey,” said Stacey S. “I think you should work on yourself.” The blender stopped.
“But with Jack, I feel things it took me months to feel with Mikey. He’s, I don’t know, spectacular. Necessary.”
“Do you want me to see if my parents will let you come down and do yoga here?” asked Stacey. “I’m drinking kale right now. It’s surprisingly okay. There’s pineapple in with it. That’s the key. You put enough pineapple in a smoothie and you could put, like, dog poo in there and nobody would taste it.”
“Ick.”
“You’d have to sleep on a blow-up on the floor, but you could probably take some yoga classes. You could drink kale and meet Camilla. It will help you get over Mikey.” Stacey and her ex-girlfriend Camilla were dating again.
“I am absolutely over Mikey,” said Adelaide.
“You’re not over Mikey. I’m telling you that right now. It was a very big deal, you and Mikey.”
“I am over him.”
“Not over Mikey is written all over everything you’re saying in this phone call.”
“The question, more accurately,” said Adelaide, “is how do I conduct this new relationship
or possible relationship
in some different, better way so that
I’m not a secretly sad
not-all-the-way-lovable person, but am instead the
personification of self-actualized awesomeness
and will therefore get what I want, given that
what I want is
Jack?”
“You mean besides coming here to do yoga and drink kale? Because that would self-actualize you.”
“I can’t leave the dogs. And yes, besides that.”
“I don’t know,” said Stacey. “I think you’re lovable and Mikey Double L is just not that great, that’s what I think.”
That afternoon, Sunny Kaspian-Lee summoned Adelaide to her studio classroom to talk about the missing project. One section of the room featured four sewing machines and racks of clothes—costumes from past productions. There was a closet jammed with fabrics and props. On the other side were tall tables surrounded by stools. Dirty box fans whirred on the floor in a number of places, circulating the air.
Kaspian-Lee sat at one of the small tables. She wore a gray dress of unusual architecture, plus a pair of pointy-toed flats that made her feet look constricted and witchy. She did not say hello.
“I need you to deliver on this project, Adelaide Buchwald. If you don’t, I’ll have to fail you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to fail you. I’m a nice teacher. I want to teach you. But you’ve done very little work thus far, and if I weren’t friends with your father, I would be flunking you like I would any other entitled kid who blows off my class.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind this term.”
“That doesn’t matter, I’m sorry to say. You still have to work.”
“I will work.”
“I need the Fool for Love project by August tenth. After that, my lover, B-Cake, and I are going to the seashore.” Kaspian-Lee pushed over a printout of the assignment.
“My problem is the motel room,” said Adelaide. “When I saw everyone else’s models, they were, whatever, just that. Motel rooms
. They all looked the same.”
“That’s not why you didn’t do the work.”
Adelaide felt herself flush. “No, it’s not.”
“People did some clever things,” said Kaspian-Lee. “Listen. I assign this play because it requires only a single set. It’s a good basic project. However, Fool for Love is not a naturalistic play. Read it, Adelaide Buchwald. I can tell you haven’t read it.”
Adelaide looked at the floor.
“What happens in this play is not everyday life.”
“Okay,” said Adelaide.
“All right. Now that you’ve had your talking-to, here’s a key to the building and the classroom. That way you can work here, where the supplies are.” Kaspian-Lee collected her bag from the table and headed toward the door.
“Wait,” called Adelaide. “Is that guy Jack still walking B-Cake for you?” Just saying his name felt huge. She had been thinking about him all day.
“He told me he ran into you. At the dog run.”
Adelaide’s heart beat faster. “Is he walking her regularly?”
* * *
“No, he isn’t,” said Kaspian-Lee. “I get my lover, Martin Schlegel, to walk her. I am trying to get Mr. Schlegel to appreciate dogs, you see.” She sighed. “It is an uphill road. B-Cake growls at him and farts in the kitchen. Martin doesn’t appreciate either of those behaviors.”
* * *
“Yes,” said Kaspian-Lee. “I rather like having good-looking people do chores for me.”
“What?”
“Don’t be scandalized. Hetero men have enjoyed pretty waitresses and nurses for centuries now.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. “Don’t fret, Adelaide Buchwald,” she said as she left. “Just build your model, serve the play, and pass this course. It’s really not very difficult.”
* * *
“Jack is not walking B-Cake at all. He’s not a responsible walker of B-Cake.”
“What happened?”
“He fed her dog biscuits. She isn’t supposed to eat biscuits. I don’t know why he even had them.”
“That’s so bad,” said Adelaide.
“I know,” said Kaspian-Lee. “Horrid digestive things happened.”
Of course, it was Adelaide who had given B-Cake the dog biscuits.
Jack had lied to protect her.
* * *
“I’ve had very little business with Jack,” said Kaspian-Lee. “He’s not my concern. Don’t mention him to Mr. Schlegel.”
“What do you mean?”
The teacher took out a cigarette and lit it, even though there was no smoking allowed in the building. She opened a drawer and pulled out an ashtray. “Why do you think he’s beautiful?” asked Kaspian-Lee. “Tell me.”
“I didn’t say he was beautiful.”
“Anyone would say he was beautiful. What I’m asking is, why?”
“I don’t know,” said Adelaide. “His features are symmetrical?”
“No.”
“His eyes are far apart?”
“Lots of people have wide-set eyes or symmetrical features. What happened to Jack’s leg?”
“He was born that way.”
“There’s still a story. He’s had surgeries. The point is, we want to know. But it’s rude to ask. So there’s a tension there. And not only the leg and the scars, but the dead mother, the time in Spain. There’s the whiff of tragedy, and of experience. Tragedy is attractive.”
“I don’t think it’s attractive at all,” said Adelaide firmly. “Tragedy makes people compulsively sad and unlovable. It’s like a dirty stain.”
“Untrue. It’s attractive on your father, for example. His hardship with your brother. It interests people. Tragedy…”
Attractive on your father.
Attractive on your father?
“Tragedy is a pinnacle of human experience,” Kaspian-Lee went on. “Not that any of us wants to experience it, but we like to think about tragedy quite a lot. That’s why Shakespeare wrote tragedies, and the Greeks. It’s why we like Fool for Love—the doomed romance.”
“I don’t think you should be talking about students’ beauty,” Adelaide said to Kaspian-Lee. “Or my father’s attractiveness.”
“Jack is not my student,” said Kaspian-Lee. “He’s not matriculated at Alabaster yet.”
“He’s a kid.”
“Oh, you’re being very old-fashioned. I’m not going to touch that boy or interfere with him any other way. And I’m hardly going to bother with your father when he’s happily married and I have Martin Schlegel.” Kaspian-Lee extinguished her cigarette. “I’m saying all this as an artist and a human being. You hold on to everything very tightly in your body. Did you know that? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it made you ill one day soon. Loosen up, Adelaide.”
And with that, she left the room.
Back in August, Toby had returned to the Baltimore house three nights before Adelaide left for Alabaster. He was beginning ninth grade over again at fifteen, going to the school Adelaide was leaving. He still had sober-living stuff he had to do each week: a group, a sponsor, a therapist.
Of course Adelaide had seen Toby since he’d moved to Future House. He’d been home for a few weekends. But they didn’t know each other anymore. They didn’t play Unstable Unicorns, or make up strings of swear words, or tease their parents together. None of that.
Toby was going to take Adelaide’s bedroom. Adelaide and Rebecca had fixed it up for him. Rebecca knitted him an afghan. Adelaide took down her posters and drawings but left him her collection of cacti. Rebecca changed the bedding to Toby’s old blue sheets.
When the car pulled up from Future House, Levi and Toby made themselves very busy unloading things and carrying them upstairs. Adelaide gave Toby an awkward hug. He smelled okay. Like Dr Pepper, which he must have been drinking in the car.
He still didn’t know how to shave. He was heavier than he had been last time she saw him, the result of a new medication.
She showed him the redecorated room and explained how to care for the cacti collection. “They’re yours now,” she said. “I thought they’d help you feel at home.” He said thanks, but he didn’t seem to actually like them. She waited for him to notice his old box of Lego bricks and the row of original Lego landscapes she’d built that were still on top of the bookshelf.
He didn’t seem to see them.
An hour later, when he was downstairs, Adelaide went back to the room. She picked up the Lego box and lugged it downstairs to the garage, where her stuff for Alabaster was waiting to be loaded into her father’s car.
Fine, then. She would keep it for herself.
Toby had a new smartphone, and he spent the rest of the day on it a lot, adding games and setting it up. He took a long shower and came to dinner with his hair wet. He didn’t talk much during the meal.
The night before Adelaide left for Alabaster, her mother made lasagna and her dad made ginger cake. Adelaide was already packed but she couldn’t sleep, so she and Toby found themselves awake after their parents went to bed. She would spend the night on the living room couch foldout.
“Want to watch a movie?” she asked. Toby was staring at his phone, playing Plants vs. Zombies.
“Yeah, okay.”
She opened her laptop. They sat in the kitchen. She picked The Bourne Identity, an action movie, and Toby said fine.
Adelaide wiped the crumbs off the kitchen table.
And got up to make a piece of toast.
And to put honey on her toast.
And to put the bread away.
She couldn’t sit still, because she was leaving for boarding school the next day. And because it was strange, having Toby next to her. She looked at him to see if he would laugh or comment on the movie.
He didn’t.
She said, “Did you watch a lot of movies at Future House?”
He shrugged. “A few.”
“Like what? Were there any you were into?”
“Not especially.”
“I signed up for a class called Design for the Theater at Alabaster,” she said. “And so I’ve started to think about it when I watch a movie. You know? I was thinking that in movies the design is almost always
realistic. Or
naturalistic, is what I mean.
It looks like real life. The cars on-screen look like
real cars on a
real street. The lighting is supposed to look natural. But in a play, you can have a
gesture. You can gesture toward a street. It can be
abstract.”
Toby was still looking at the computer screen.
“In the theater,” Adelaide went on, wanting him to understand why she found this so interesting, “your audience doesn’t expect things to look
real. Like, you can’t have a
real car on the stage, anyway, can you? So instead, you make something
obviously artificial. You just
create the feeling. And maybe the thing you make, instead of looking
real, feels
true. Maybe
truer than real. Does that make sense?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Do you get what I mean?”
“Yes, Adelaide. I get it, okay?”
“Sorry.” She knew she was being talky, and she knew they were watching The Bourne Identity, but she wanted Toby to understand.
He was still looking at the screen.
Was he even listening?
Did he not care?
Finally, she snapped. “You have to figure out how to shave, okay? Dad has to teach you.”
“What?”
She said, “Before you go to school. Learn to freaking shave. Your mustache looks terrible.”
She said, “I mean, not that you have to conform to other people’s ideas of how you should look. You don’t. You shouldn’t. Shaving isn’t mandatory.”