by Sarah Combs
“What’s with the jargon, Cal? Where’d you learn to write like this?”
“Eighth-grade mock trial. Back when everybody wanted to grow up to be president and save the world.”
I entered my address and birthday and signed on the line. “Do we really need a notary?”
Calvin looked around. “Holyfield, come here. Chloe, can I borrow your lipstick?”
Chloe seemed to know what was coming next. “Dude, use a marker. Here.”
Holyfield didn’t object at all; he just lolled in Calvin’s arms as Cal applied purple marker to the pads of his right front paw.
“Holyfield,” he said, “you’re as good a notary as any.”
5 July
Dear Carol,
A Virginia Woolf garret!!! I like it! Can we afford it? Can we afford anything at all, anywhere? I kind of worry about how we’re broke, how money doesn’t grow on trees, etc., etc., etc. Anyway. I’m in but let’s graduate first. You’re right, I’m sentimental, getting more that way every second. For your eyes only, a list, if you will, of weird things about which I am currently sentimental:
Babies (!!!). Last night in X’s bus I rode next to baby Juliet. She was asleep in her carrier and in the dark I held on to her little foot.
Taylor Swift songs. I know! Kill me now. But dude, Taylor just pours out of the dorm rooms all day long and I can’t avoid it and now I accidentally know all the words. Carol, listen: That shit is poignant. I am not kidding. Also, Taylor seems like a genuinely nice person. Smart, too. I’m just saying. Do you ever worry that our friendship is maybe based on a shared disdain for too many people and things? I propose we work on the Assholery. Starting now.
The Mad Hatter. I know. Also an accident.
Obviously I need to get out of here before I lose myself completely. I miss you. Almost as much as I miss your mom, byotch. Next time you talk to her, tell her hi from me.
Love,
Glo
I was hanging out in the laundry room, writing letters and listening to Alex’s CD and enjoying the gentle hypnosis provided by the spin of the dryer. The songs still worked their magic on me, but Alex seemed far away, much farther than Alaska.
5 July
Dear Alex,
Sorry it has taken me so long to write and thank you for the CD. I love it, I truly do. I hope things are going well in Talkeetna. I’m proud of you for going and hope I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.
Love,
Gloria
It was the shortest, boringest, most unimaginative letter I’d ever written, but also the hardest and the most true. I was trying to work on saying what I meant and leaving it at that. Before I could change my mind — i.e., before I could embellish the letter with some of my trademark hyperbole — I sealed the envelope, addressed it, and affixed it with a stamp (Gregory Peck, of course. Atticus himself!).
Letter writing, I had discovered, was exhausting. Not just because of the effort of putting pen to paper, either. What I had written to Carol and Alex was one thing, but the mood of weird nostalgia that the act of writing put me in — well. That was quite another. There I was in the basement of Reynolds Hall, but my mind was back in sixth grade, Sunday mornings after sleepovers at Carol’s house. Carol’s mom always dragged everybody, including me, to church. I enjoyed the inevitable chaos of those mornings: everybody bitching over the whine of the hair dryer, shoes and coats searched for and eventually found, Eggo waffles crammed into our mouths en route to the minivan. Carol and her brothers hated churchgoing on principle — the theft of their sleep, the uncomfortable clothes and forced niceties — but because I myself didn’t go to church outside of these excursions (just another thing my parents couldn’t agree on from the start), I came to the whole experience with a charged-up feeling that was half abject terror and half reverent curiosity.
First there was Sunday school. It made me uneasy because there I was, this weird girl wearing her best friend’s clothes, an interloper among kids who had been going to church together since birth. It was sort of like being at the pool in the summer: There I’d be, all pale and freckled and clueless, flailing around in a pathetic attempt at a doggy paddle while all these other kids — born beneath the sea, apparently; born with gills and fins! — cut smooth, lithe paths through the pool and climbed out at the deep end, water gleaming on the sort of shoulder blades — tanned, angular — that could easily slice through melons.
So I was uneasy because of that whole load, but I was also uneasy because the Sunday school room smelled exactly like another basement room in another place in the back closet of my memory: Miss Lolly’s preschool room, where my mother would drop off four-year-old me every day before going to work. I got a ridiculous amount of joy out of those drives from my house to preschool, if you want to know the truth. I would have my mother to myself for fifteen whole minutes, during which she would sing along with the radio — Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, horrible songs that nonetheless make me sob when I hear them in Muzak versions at the dentist’s office — and I would listen to her voice and breathe in the familiar spicy scent of her perfume. Then we’d get to Miss Lolly’s room and she would leave me. She’d leave me, and GoGo would pick me up. That’s how it always went, right up until the day my mother left for good. GoGo picked me up that day, too, and kept picking me up — one school day, one piano lesson, one rehearsal, one orthodontist’s appointment, one heartbreak or another at a time.
So. Apropos of what I was trying to get at: the Sunday school room in Carol’s church smelled like Miss Lolly’s preschool room, which is to say that it smelled like Leaving. I liked it better when we went upstairs to the Big Church, where it smelled like Incense and Mystery. For Carol and her brothers, this part was torture of the utmost (Carol would zone out during the sermon and write me notes on the program — That guy is picking his nose!, etc., etc.). As for me, I was so ashamed of and bewildered by my own church ineptitude — not to mention agonized by Carol’s too-small-for-me, itchy clothes — that most of what transpired was completely lost on me. People would keep standing up and sitting back down and kneeling and saying stuff in eerie unison, and I would just feel like disappearing. There was this one part of the liturgy, though, that I truly loved and looked forward to every time. It happened just before the Communion, when the choir would sing this song with a bunch of hallelujahs in it. That part, man — that was something special. I could cry just thinking about it, and I did, out of nowhere as I was writing that über-boring letter to Alex. Those voices, rising up to greet the ceiling? They were it. Bound up in those voices was the same magic, the same mystery, that I felt under the stars at Calvin’s farm. The same wonder I felt when Mason was standing before me, wearing a sleeve of butterflies. I felt it again in the Mystery Machine as I held baby Juliet’s tiny foot in my hand. That behold-the-ocean feeling. That kiss-a-boy feeling, times ten.
Anyway. Carol’s mom quit forcing her kids to go to church once they got to high school. I never went back, either, but those voices of the choir have stayed with me. I was tempted to share that with Carol and Alex in my letters, but instead I stuck with what I was trying to say. The beginning of it, anyway. What was the rest of what I was trying to say? That I love you? That being a small part of your family has been the best gift of my life, that it has provided me with more joy and proof of God than any rocker-slash-evangelist in a pair of jeans could ever in a million years give me? Dear Alex: That kiss was awesome and the CD rocks and I love to fall asleep thinking about your eyelashes, but your mom’s the one I’m really in love with and can I please have her, please and thank you, please?
Yeah, something like that. But that’s not really the kind of stuff you can put in a letter unless you want somebody to think you’ve gone completely batshit-crazy with a cherry on top.
So I was balancing the laundry basket on my hip and digging around in my pocket for my room key when I heard voices. On the other side of the door to room 317, Jessica and Sonya were singing. Some kind of duet, and Sonya was doing the l
ow part.
“Shit,” came Sonya’s voice, breaking apart from the song. “Can we start again?”
As quietly as I could, I lowered the laundry to the floor and propped myself against the door. The hallway was empty; I had this show to myself.
“Want me to do alto?” Jess asked.
“No, you’re better on soprano. I got it, I got it. Let’s just start again.”
I could picture them in there, closing their eyes and letting their voices braid together. The song was something I’d never heard before, something about Gloaming and My Darling and the Lights, Soft and Low. My friends’ voices were surprisingly lovely; if I hadn’t known it was Jessica and Sonya in there, I never would have guessed that the voices could belong to them.
For my heart was tossed with longing . . .
Tossed with longing. The story of my life, maybe?
It was best to leave you thus, dear, best for you and best for me . . .
The song was sad as hell! Where had they gotten hold of this sad song? Their voices trailed off and, after a moment of quiet (another iridescent bubble; I held my breath), they both burst out laughing.
“Did I get it that time?” Sonya asked.
“You nailed it, girl.”
“Are we talent-show ready?”
“As ready as we’re gonna be.”
More laughter, and they launched into a rousing duet version of one of those Taylor Swift songs that for days had been cruising around uninvited in my head. I reached for the knob and then thought better of it. I waited until they finished the song, then I hefted my laundry and headed back down the stairs.
IT WAS our third week at geek camp, and Chloe had requested of X that she be permitted to present her Great American Novel at the Egg Drop. Xiu Li had agreed to open a half hour early on Chloe’s behalf; this meant that we all had to get up way early, so everyone was grumpy. Mason gulped coffee and Calvin tapped the window, on the other side of which was Holyfield, looking forlorn.
“I’ll bring you some scrambled eggs, buddy, don’t worry.”
“Calvin, you shouldn’t baby that dog so much,” X said. “So are we all met? Are we ready to get this show on the road?”
“Almost ready!” Xiu Li announced. She was clad in one of Chloe’s flapper dresses and was carrying a tray full of little glasses of something frothy and pink. “Sloe gin fizzes!”
Calvin was aghast. “Xiu Li, it is seven thirty in the morning. I’m seventeen.”
Xiu Li couldn’t have looked more pleased. She set the tray on the table and clapped her hands. “Drink up!”
Some kind of swanky speakeasy music started pouring out of the jukebox, and Chloe emerged from the swinging kitchen doors, swishy in her own fringed dress. She had a long string of beads around her neck and was smoking an unlit cigarette stuck onto the end of an elegant holder. I could see why Chloe fancied this era so much; she so looked the part. I exchanged grins with Calvin and Mason and we settled in for what promised to be an entertaining show.
A moment later the kitchen doors swung open again and another unexpected player emerged on the scene: the beautiful Latina girl from down the hall. She had been catching my eye since Geek Camp began, but I’d been too intimidated to approach her — she seemed years older than everyone else, oozing experience and sophistication in her pointy boots, dark eyeliner, and bright, tight clothes. She was the kind of girl who seemed in possession of the facts, is what I’m saying. One morning on the way to the shower I caught a glimpse of her in her room, kneeling before a silk-draped altar of candles and a miniature version of that ginormous Jesus statue in Brazil. Christ the Redeemer, one of the new seven wonders of the world, I remember thinking stupidly as I stood there, too spellbound to know I was staring. She had looked up then and smiled at me, a kind smile that said come in, but I’d beelined for the bathroom, horrified at having been caught gawking. Now she was standing before me in a flapper dress, swinging a tennis racket, her dark hair wound around her head in a thick rope.
“This is Jimena,” Chloe announced. “She’s Jordan Baker. I’m Daisy, obviously.”
Jimena waved. “Olá, yall.”
Chloe looked at Jimena. “Ready?”
Jimena nodded. “Sim.”
Chloe put on a bored expression and draped herself in the nearest booth. She gazed at her audience with impressive Daisy-esque languor. “‘In two weeks it’ll be the longest day of the year,’” she drawled. “‘Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.’”
On cue, Jimena threw her arm across her forehead as if she too were very, very bored. She yawned ostentatiously. “We ought to plan something.”
Chloe/Daisy perked up and rose from the booth. “All right. What’ll we plan?” She ran to Calvin and flung her arms around him. “What do people plan?”
Calvin looked around, panicked. “Am I supposed to say something? Because I do not have Gatsby memorized, if that’s what you’re thinking. You can’t just expect me to —”
“Shhhh!” Chloe ordered. She detached herself from Calvin and stepped back to where Jimena was standing. They gripped hands and bowed. Xiu Li commenced vigorous applause.
X raised his eyebrows. “Is that it?”
Chloe’s shoulders dropped. “What do you mean, is that it? Of course that’s it. That’s my favorite part of the book. You’ve just witnessed a dramatic interpretation of my favorite part of the book, X, hello.”
“Ahhhhh,” X said, backpedaling. “Gotcha, gotcha.” He looked around at us and nodded. “So. Can you tell us why it’s your favorite part?”
Chloe and Jimena exchanged a confused glance.
“Because,” Chloe said. “Because to me, that’s what the whole book is about. You wait and wait for something wonderful to happen and then it happens when you’re not looking. Either that or it doesn’t happen at all.”
This was a thing I understood, not just a little bit but a huge, fiery lot. I was about to voice my understanding when Chloe started to cry. Mason grabbed a handful of napkins and rose from his seat to offer them to her. Before, I would have scoffed at that move — here’s the Mad Hatter, using Chloe’s frustration as a chance to call attention to himself — but now I saw the gesture for what it was: Mason being nice. He could be really nice, really thoughtful, when he wanted to be.
“Forget it,” Chloe said, blowing her nose. She yanked the spangly feathered band from her head and tossed it on a table. “This is stupid. It’s too hard to explain. I can’t say why I love the book. I just do. You don’t pick the books you fall in love with any more than you pick the people you fall in love with. It just happens, and when it happens, you know. Who’s to say where love comes from?”
Chloe shifted her wet gaze briefly to Jimena, whose face appeared lit from within. The joy was contagious, like when a person yawns: I looked around at my friends and we were all wearing ridiculous grins.
Chloe grabbed one of Xiu Li’s sloe gin fizzes, sank into the booth beside me, and started gulping. “This is awesome, Xiu Li. Thank you.”
Xiu Li tipped her head in a compassionate nod. I took one of the glasses and clinked it against Chloe’s. “I thought you were great.” Then, I couldn’t resist a whispered dig: “Girl, you’ve been holding out on us!”
Chloe shrugged, grinning hugely. “It happened when I wasn’t looking.”
“X,” Chloe said, shifting gears. “This is hard. I really did want to get it right. I’m sorry if I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down,” X said. “In fact, you illustrated the point beautifully. You gave me exactly what I asked for.”
“Failure?”
“Passion.”
Chloe managed a smile. “Yeah, well. Passion’s not going to get me into the Sorbonne.”
X shrugged. “Who says? You might be surprised. I hear the French are big on passion.”
Chloe smiled all the way. “Oui oui.”
“Now,” X cont
inued, “one more sip and then yall need to stop imbibing. My job is on the line. Thank you, Xiu Li, for the drinks and the atmosphere. This has been smashing. Are we ready to head to class? It’s time for a little James Joyce, people.”
The air was electric with the promise of rain. Not just rain but a storm — the kind you can smell drifting toward you on the breeze. GoGo had taught me that if you can see the undersides of the leaves, a storm is coming. Holyfield sensed it, too — he led the way to class with his ears lifted and a tiny Mohawk raised on his back.
Halfway to the classroom building, Chloe paused to say goodbye to Jimena. They’d been holding hands as they walked and now they were wrapped in a long embrace — long for eight in the morning, anyway.
“Don’t stare,” I said to Calvin, whacking his arm.
“I’m not staring!”
I steered Calvin onward and grabbed Mason’s sleeve with my free arm. “Give them a little privacy, yall, come on.”
We were hunching forward against the quickening wind when Jimena called out to us. “It was very nice to meet all of you!”
I stopped and turned, yanking Calvin and Mason around with me. “It was nice to meet you, too, Jimena. You’re a great Jordan Baker.”
Jimena raised her arm and pointed. A blue butterfly was flying toward her, beating its wings against the wind. “They’ll be gone after this storm. This one’s stopping to say goodbye.”
“She knows about this stuff,” Chloe said to us. Then, leaning into Jimena, “Hey, tell them about the legends.”
Jimena blushed. Her hair was whipping about her face; she unwound a strand from her neck and pulled another away from her mouth. “No, no. It’s silly.”
“It’s not silly!” Chloe protested. “Gloria, you’ll love this. So, where Jimena comes from, these butterflies are a very big deal. Some people think they’re evil — like tricksters or something, like in fables —”