In actual fact, I grew up eating homemade pie and watching wholesome teen movies from the 1980s where the worst thing anyone does is wear criminally gigantic shoulder pads.
“Bad seed,” I say.
“Maybe you should ditch the field hockey and stick with ballet. I play for their performances—orchestra does. Seems like a more stable gang of thugs.”
“What do you play?”
“Violin. Third chair, not exactly stellar. Only class I can stand to attend on a regular basis this year.”
“You’re making me regret giving up cello.” And not for musical reasons. “I love the music, but I suck.”
He says, “You’d fit right in.”
“Anyway, thanks for the advice. I always keep my eye out for bands of thugs. Coming from a Canadian street gang and all.”
Dylan shakes his head. “You know what they’re going to do to you, right?”
“What?” I say. “Embarrass us in front of the whole French class. Knock us down when we try to be on their lame field hockey teams. Not talk to us. Avoid us. Sneer when I talk in class. Stick needles in my eyes.”
“All of it,” he says.
This is not an incorrect assessment of the situation.
Siobhan and I are a two-girl island in a sea of bobbing mean girls.
I get into (somewhat remedial) ballet that meets just before lunch, and the girls tend to eat together. But in a room of stick-thin, aspiring ballet girls, I’m the Sesame Street, one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others, doesn’t-fit-in one who eats actual food. Because the ballet teacher here pitches a fit whenever anybody jiggles, even if they’re only there to get out of field hockey.
I am not giving up food.
Siobhan, who is apparently the most terrifying lacrosse player in the history of girls’ lacrosse, has teammates swarming her (grateful she has saved them from a season of endless defeat), but she says they’re all hormonal.
And boys.
She could be eating lunch daily with the football guys at the picnic table the unattached ones—the ones who don’t spend lunch making out with their girlfriends in between huge bites of burger—like. They go, “Hey, Siobhan!” and then, as an afterthought Siobhan insists is not an afterthought, “Hey, Emma!”
Within a week, she is playing midnight touch football with them, climbing the fence and evading Latimer security. And I, Emma Lazar, Canadian good girl, am eating lunch with the Latimer Day football boys.
Dylan is never around at lunch.
Siobhan says, “Who are you looking for? Not that jerk from the beach club. I told you he’s not here. You should listen to me.”
I say, “No,” because I’m not. I don’t say who I am looking for, as this would involve pointing at Dylan and gnawing on my arm to keep from saying something truly embarrassing.
“Guy’s an arrogant dick,” she says. “Guy can’t go on a simple corkscrew run without sticking his tongue down some handy skank’s throat.”
“Making me the handy skank?”
She says, “How do you know how many other girls he kissed on his way to the maître d’? How do you know if he even kept it in his pants between the beach and the clubhouse? Oh, that’s right. You don’t.”
“How do you know I didn’t captivate him with my charm?” I don’t actually think this is what happened, but the thought of him kissing his way up from the beach, his lips landing on mine just because they were there, is not my memory of choice.
“Your charm and that dress. I love that dress.”
The football boys, catching a snippet of a conversation with “not keep it in his pants” in it, are suddenly attentive.
The mean girls walking past our table take note, but what are they going to do, dump their Fiji water down our backs?
“Us against them,” Siobhan whispers. “We win.”
• • •
In Math, Dylan walks past my desk even though his desk is in the farthest back corner, by the door. The blazer hanging off one shoulder brushes my arm, smooth and alarmingly electric for navy blue gabardine. “So. Any needles in the eye yet?”
I say, “I’ll let you know. If.”
“Not if. When.” He writes his number on a slightly used Post-it and sticks it on my sleeve. He says, “Text. They don’t confiscate cell phones. They say they do, but they don’t.”
I type his number into my phone.
I do not pay attention in class.
I feel an astonishing absence of guilt.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN MY DEFENSE, EMMA THE good did not slide easily into the realm of the formerly good. I was not a complete scourge-of-God liar leading a fun life of deceit from the moment of the magic kiss.
Because, at first, my life of virtue remained stunningly intact. The extent of my evil was the sunglasses mini-lie I told my dad, and the completely false claim that the only makeup on my face was the slightest faint hint of mascara. And, all right, every word I said (and didn’t say) about Siobhan and pretty much everything we did, other than study.
In the Emma the Good column, I finish all homework and commune with my dad’s pick for my best friend in L.A., Megan Donnelly. It’s lucky that Megan and I like each other because we’re like the arranged marriage of kid friendship. It’s not her fault she’s the prisoner of her exponentially more clueless dad and overly attentive mom, goes to school in a convent even though she isn’t, strictly speaking, Catholic anymore (although she has yet to share her lack of religious conviction with her parents), and spends all her time studying, going to church, and attending uplifting cultural events.
My dad achieves a state of parental bliss at the Donnellys’: While other parents worry that their kids are having lots and lots of unprotected sex, Megan’s mom worries she’ll drink beverages with artificial sweeteners.
Something about rotting your cerebral cortex.
“Just drink the apple juice and don’t ask,” Megan whispers. “You really do not want to know.”
If you line up Megan, whose idea of teen rebellion is talking to Joe, a boy she never ever gets to see in real life, on her cell phone, with Siobhan, whose idea of teen rebellion is teen rebellion, it’s hard to tell that they inhabit the same century.
Also in the good column, all the way on top, I cart sacks of brown rice around and teach eager eighty-year-olds (and kids who only know how to operate, say, late-model Macs) how to log in donations on the world’s oldest, slowest computer at the food bank where I volunteer—the place that my dad, in a giant breach of good-father decorum, slips up and calls Temple Beth Boob Job.
Obviously, this isn’t the name of the temple: It is Temple Beth Torah, and the core of its existence is repairing the world, one grocery bag at a time.
It is not a bad place.
Except the young, girly rabbi is too friendly. I’m pretty sure it’s because my needy-motherless-girl flag is flying and she wants to share how to knit sweaters and the mysteries of tampons. (Hint: motherless, not needy.) But I think she catches me admiring her kippah, which is made of silver filigreed wire, as if a highly disorganized spider spun a skullcap that caught tiny pearls. Just as she’s telling me how welcome I’d be in levels of the temple higher than the basement where the food bank is, say in youth group, where I could be part of my own little community, my dad—who volunteers himself every couple of weeks, partly to help heal the world and partly to check up on me—bundles me into the car and starts making cracks about the place.
“Our community isn’t little and it extends far beyond the walls of this temple and all these reconfigured breasts,” he says. “Entendu?”
Overlooking the fact that every Friday night, he makes Shabbat dinner. I light candles, he blesses me, and we eat an exact replica of the giant Moroccan Sabbath meal my grandma Bella—whom I barely remember—no doubt cooks each week in Côte Saint-Luc, just north of Montreal. During which he drills me with the tenets of Judaism he approves of, his favorite being tikkun olam, repairing the world, into which feeding the hungry fal
ls. And somewhat lashon hara, which boils down to no mean gossip, his free pass to establish a vast list of important topics that he won’t discuss.
All of which we pretend never happened because, in another never-to-be-discussed fact of Lazar family life, my dad is off organized Judaism, religion in general, and all members of the Lazar family (religious or not) in Montreal. Which is so far from an approved topic for dinnertime chatter that you have to wonder if my dad ever thinks about it anymore.
When we are driving home from the food bank, I go, “Dad, so if Rabbi Pam asks what religion I am, what do I say?”
He says, “She asked you that?”
“No, but the thing is, we’re bagging groceries in a temple.”
“Would you prefer a church?” He sounds flustered, as if he’s beating himself up for committing a child-rearing blunder. “I could find you a church.”
Not find us a church, find me one. Raising the question of whether he thinks of me as the same religion as the rest of the Lazar clan, or, for example, as him.
I say, “No! Dad! This is fine. I like Beth Boob Job.”
“Ems!”
“Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who made the inappropriate comment in front of my impressionable kid.”
My dad fake-slaps at my jeans. He says, “Enough. You’re a good kid, but enough.”
But before long, when you add up the number of hours I spend as a paragon of virtue in the basement of that temple, it turns out to be the exact number of hours I feel as if I can still claim the title of Emma the Good, figuring out how many cans of tuna I can give people, whether there are enough boxes of dried mac and cheese to go around.
• • •
Siobhan says, “You spend every Sunday sorting rice and beans? You can’t come with me once?”
Siobhan spends her non-lacrosse Sundays at her stepfather’s country club, flirting with Wade, the junior tennis pro, who goes to UCLA. This drives her mom up a wall as apparently her one and only rule for Siobhan is No Older Guys. Her strategy when driven up a wall is to try to distract Siobhan by taking her shopping and burying her under the entire contents of Kitson.
“Win-win-win,” Siobhan says, cracking open her uniform blouse to reveal a new black camisole. The blouses are the thickness of plastic picnic tablecloths. The black doesn’t show through.
She says, “I still don’t get it. Why doesn’t your dad write your food place a check and just be done with it?”
• • •
Megan Donnelly says, “He offered to find you a church? Maybe he’s giving you a choice. Unlikely, but consider. If my parents gave me anything resembling a religious choice, I’d throw a party.”
We’re sitting on Megan’s bed, eating my dad’s fudge brownies that I had to sneak in because her mom thinks pastries are a public health menace.
I say, “Or maybe he just doesn’t want the spawn of Satan in his club.”
I’m talking about my mom, and Megan knows it.
Megan says, “She wasn’t Satan! My dad says your dad was so in love with her, he couldn’t even think.”
“Meaning he was thinking with . . . you know.”
Megan, who is the nicest, but not the most experienced, person you could ever meet (even compared to me), says, “No, thinking with what?”
I say, “Nothing.”
Seriously, would Emma the Good corrupt Megan Donnelly? Every time we go over there, Megan’s parents, my dad’s friends since medical school, make him look like an irresponsible, anything goes–type parent. Before we escaped to Megan’s room with the contraband chocolate, the dinner table talk involved how her mom spends her nights in the ER, cleaning up the alcohol-poisoned, bloodied, car-wrecked, controlled-substance-ingesting teen wreckage of other parents’ failure to recognize the dangers of urban life. Then we listened to her dad complain about how minors can get condoms at twenty-four-hour drugstores.
On the drive home, my dad says, “There’s a revelation! Compared to Edgar Donnelly, I’m the groovy dad.”
I am practicing driving my dad’s car through the winding streets near the base of Griffith Park. Which is why all I’m thinking about is not hitting other cars. I say, “I hate to tell you, but you can’t say ‘groovy.’ Were you even born when people said that?”
If I’d been looking at him instead of the road, I would have stopped there.
I say, “Also. You’re the total despot dad. Edgar is just a whack job.”
“I’m a what?”
“Sorry! That was a completely bad joke. Sorry!” I accidentally slightly swerve the car across the dotted line that runs down the middle of the street.
He says, “Pull over.” Which I do.
He says, “A despot? Is that what you think?”
I have made my dad miserable again. I say, “Of course not! We’ve been at the Donnellys’ too long! I’m the one who’s allowed to joke around. Megan is the totally oppressed one who will no doubt run away and go to stripper school if you don’t make Edgar see reason.”
He says, “Good save.”
He pats my shoulder. He says, “I’m proud of you, Ems. Don’t disappoint me.”
I am determined not to. Emma the Good. Emma the, all right, considerably less than good. Every cell and eyelash of me is determined not to disappoint.
Meaning: He can’t find out. Anything. Ever.
CHAPTER SIX
ON MONDAY, GOING INTO HISTORY, Dylan wants to know if I had a nice weekend.
“Hey, Bad Seedling,” he says, “what do Canadian ballerinas do in L.A.?”
I say, “It’s just PE ballet, not actual ballet.”
“Hard to picture you doing jumping jacks in toe shoes.”
“Visualize my father taking me to concerts at UCLA. Visualize me listening to three hours of Brahms.”
Chelsea, who just won’t give it up, says, “So that’s where people who don’t get invited to parties go. What do they do for fun, I wonder?”
“How do you know if she goes to parties?” Siobhan says, dropping her notebook on her desk.
“Answer the question,” Chelsea snaps. “Did somebody invite you to a party somewhere in civilization, Emily?” She turns to Siobhan. “Maybe you can get yourself invited if you rub up against everybody on the football team enough—I hear you’re very close to groping all of them—but Miss Thrift Shop here?” She looks me over, and recoils. “I doubt it.”
I say, “It’s Emma.”
Dylan holds up his hand, to no avail.
Chelsea says, “Even Dylan Kahane thinks she’s seedy. And he sleeps in his clothes.” As if he weren’t there to hear her dissing him.
“Seedling,” says Arif. Arif Saad is the English-accented, creased and pressed, Saudi Arabian foil to Dylan’s casual insubordination. They are a matched pair of opposites. “He called her ‘seedling.’ Friends often call each other by terms of endearment. Something you’d know, Chelsea, if you were more endearing.”
Chelsea mutters something about a camel and starts to walk away. Arif puts his hand on her arm. He says, “Repeat that.”
Chelsea just looks at him.
“That thing about the camel. Repeat that.”
Apparently Chelsea can be stared down.
Apparently Arif, once provoked, won’t give it up either.
“A point of clarification,” he says. “Was I the camel or the camel jockey? Or was I having sex with the camel? Or was that you and your maggot of a horse?”
There is a sharp intake of breath from Chelsea and everyone else.
“You aren’t going to repeat it, are you?” he says. “Unfortunate. Because I’d so enjoy a written apology.”
Dylan says, “Don’t pout. Maybe next time.”
Chelsea storms off, but doesn’t open her mouth.
I turn to Arif, who sits behind me. I say, “Thanks. And sorry.”
“My pleasure. His seedling is my seedling.” He looks over at Dylan, who is turning toward his seat in the back, snickering. “Oh no. ‘Seedling’ wasn’t
offensive or sexist or degrading, was it?”
Dylan swings around and smacks him on the back of the head. You can tell that they’ve been hanging out together since forever.
Arif says, “I’m going to sic my camel and my falcon on you.”
Dylan flips him off and Arif responds in kind, except Dylan is nowhere near his seat, whereas Arif is sitting down with his notebook open.
“Mr. Kahane,” Mr. Auden, the AP European History teacher says, coming into the room. “Again? And Mr. Saad, not what I’d expect from you.”
Dylan says, “Heading to my seat.”
“Or you could leave now and save us the suspense of wondering when you’re going to disappear.” Mr. Auden sighs. “What I wouldn’t give to have your brother back in my class. You have no idea.”
Dylan flinches. Then he says, “Okay,” and walks out the still-open door. Illustrating the idiocy of Latimer’s policy that skipping out on its magnificent educational offerings is its own punishment, a free pass for constant cutting.
Over my shoulder, I see Arif put his head down on his desk.
Lissi Kallestad, completely oblivious, waves her hand, flashing the bracelet on which her family motto, “Strive, strive, strive,” is engraved in Norwegian. “Mr. Auden! Mr. Auden! Is there extra credit for chapter four?”
Chelsea says, “Extra credit for shutting your mouth.”
I say, “Leave her alone.” Reflexively and without thinking. Oh God.
I feel a buzz in my pocket and check my phone under my desk.
Dylan: Seed. How are your history notes?
Me: I noted your departure.
Dylan: It’s my signature move. Notes?
Me: I take OCD notes. With footnotes. You still want them?
Dylan: Afraid so. Maybe for more than today. I don’t think I’ll be there much.
Me: That was pretty rank.
Dylan: O the horror. I’ve got better things to do.
Me: Who doesn’t?
Dylan: Remain seated. Resist impulse to flee. Take good notes.
When I’m anywhere near him, even by electronic proxy, even when my texting fingers are hovering three quarters of an inch over his words, I have to resist any number of impulses. Fleeing is not one of them.
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